Re: [ubuntu-uk] recommend a small form factor pc

[Mark]

On 20 September 2010 18:39, Rob Beard  wrote:

> On 20/09/10 09:57, javadayaz wrote:
> > I would like something in the less than £100 area...but doubt it.
> > Building it myself is out of the question...nothing will be that cheap.
> >
> > The revo has the ion GC which handles the HD content. So no need for a
> > seperate GCard.
> >
> > Hadnt thought about asking for the windows licence fee, will do that.
> >
>
> You can buy a Revo with Linux installed rather than Windows, don't think
> it's Ubuntu, possibly Linpus like what is installed on the Aspire One,
> but it's easy enough to replace with something else (using a USB stick,
> SD card or external DVD drive).
>
> Rob
>
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As a Acer Revo user (attached to back of a Wharfdale TV @ £150 ebuyer) and a
Keysonic mouse keyboard combo (£30 ebuyer) I could find a better solution to
a box-on-tv option running Ubuntu.

Not sure if Ebuyer are still doing low cost Acer Revo's

Mark
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] recommend a small form factor pc

[Mark]

On 20 September 2010 20:23, Colin Law  wrote:

> On 20 September 2010 18:46, Mark  wrote:
> > 
> > As a Acer Revo user (attached to back of a Wharfdale TV @ £150 ebuyer)
> and a
> > Keysonic mouse keyboard combo (£30 ebuyer) I could find a better solution
> to
> > a box-on-tv option running Ubuntu.
>
> Did you mean you could _not_ find a better solution?
>
> Colin
>
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>


Oops! sorry!
Slip of the keyboard, yes I meant could_not_find.

Mark
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Support - Where are we in the real world

[Mark]

Back on thread now...
Kings Lynn, Norfolk here.

On 21 Oct 2010 15:42,  wrote:

> I think we might want to stop feeding the troll?
He's gone anyway, or at least he told me he'd unsubscribed. He contacted me
off-list--reasonably politely, in fact--after I delurked to tell him off,
and I tried to explain why he wasn't getting helped anywhere and how he
might improve his attitude, but I don't think it sunk in. Too much invested
in his sense of aggrieved frustration to contemplate thinking for five
seconds before making with the abuse, I reckon. Or it might be because I
suggested he apologise...


jim
--
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Software Engineer

Buhler Sortex Limited
Research and Development Department
20 ...

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ink level report .....

[Mark]

On 26 November 2010 20:37, Barry Drake  wrote:

> On Fri, 2010-11-26 at 17:56 +, Barry Drake wrote:
> > 'mtink' looks as though it might work, but I wonder if anyone here knows
> > of something that will do the job on my sister's printer.
>
> I've just answered my own question.  I talked her through installing
> mtink and it works well and shows all the ink levels correctly.  When I
> come over, I'll write her a script to save her having to open a terminal
> and use 'sudo mtink'.
>
> Regards,Barry Drake.
>
> --
> Sent from my desktop using Ubuntu - the window-free environment
> that gives me real fresh air.
>
>
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>


Looks like you have it sussed but here is a somewhat over engineered script
I wrote for checking ink levels for a Canon attached :


user=$UID
 if [ $user != 0 ]
  then
zenity --error --text "You must run this script as root in order
to run the right programs"
  exit
 fi

function mainMenu {
install_pkgs
test_ink
}

function install_pkgs {
#this script requires ink libinklevel5
iink=$(dpkg -l | grep "ii  ink")
if test  ${#iink} -le 0
then
apt-get install --yes ink
fi

}

function test_ink {
ink_levels=$(ink -p usb)
zenity --info --text "$ink_levels"
}

mainMenu
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Very odd router connection problem

[Mark]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2010 16:32:33 -, Gordon Burgess-Parker  
 wrote:

> On 14/12/2010 16:26, John Stevenson wrote:
>> On 14 December 2010 16:20, Gordon Burgess-Parker > <mailto:gbpli...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> The scenario.
>> We have two broadband suppliers to our house - on two separate phone
>> lines, BT, the home supplier and another supplied by the company
>> my wife
>> works for.
>> The router supplied by the company my wife works for is unlimited
>> traffic, the BT is capped at 10GB per month.
>> I have two computers - a Windows 7 laptop and a 10.04 Ubuntu  
>> Netbook.
>> The odd thing is this - if I connect to the company router using a
>> cable
>> with the Windows 7 machine, it connects normally and normal internet
>> operations can be done. The NIC is set to DHCP both for ipv4 and  
>> ipv6.
>> If however I connect the Netbook via the same cable to the same  
>> router
>> using the "Automatic" (DHCP) settings both for ipv4 and ipv6 on eth0
>> there is NO internet access AT ALL! I've tried entering the manual  
>> IP
>> data but still NO ACCESS at all!
>> Why should this be and what do people suggest I do to get it to
>> work? (I
>> can't access the router at all)
>>
>>
>> Hello Gordon,
>> I suggest trying without IPV6 enabled, if you have not already done
>> so.  Using the network manager you should be able to set IPV6 to
>> ignore.  Then do a complete restart.
>>
>> I dont know if this wil fix your problem, but it is the first thing I
>> would try.
>>
>>
>
> Hi John,
> It was set to "ignore" initially and that wouldn't connect either, so
> when I saw that the NIC on the Windows machine was set to DHCP for ipv6,
> I changed it, with still no effect!
>

Set the netbook mac address to the same as the windows 7 mac address.
The router maybe setup to only allow connection from one mac address.
Mark
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Research required ...

[Mark]

On 27 December 2010 20:32, Barry Drake  wrote:

> On Mon, 2010-12-27 at 16:09 +, bod...@googlemail.com wrote:
> > You don't need admin access to create a wiki page, just browse to the
> pagename you want, then start editing.
>
> Thanks for that.  There is now a Wiki page at:
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WindowsCompatibility
> > This does sound like a very worthy cause. Can I make a suggestion though.
> Any failed attempts should be documented fully, this will then allow others
> to attempt the process with some prior knowledge, and might even attract
> some people who can create a solution.
>
> I've placed that in the preamble to the page.  Thanks.  Please take a
> look and by all means feel free to improve the layout.  Pretty pages are
> not my thing.
> --
> What do you see when you use your Computer? Same old thing?
> ...There IS a Better Way!  Ubuntu!
>
>
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>

Hi

Not sure if this helps:
http://www.linuxrsp.ru/win-lin-soft/table-eng.html

This was my bible when I first started with linux.

HTH

Mark
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Diaspora

[Mark]

On 2 January 2011 20:42, J Fernyhough  wrote:

> On 2 January 2011 20:36, Liam Gallear  wrote:
> >
> > I just signed up for the invite. Heard about it a while ago, and wouldn't
> mind giving it a go.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Liam
>
> Sent!
>
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>


Hi,

Not sure I get it

I gave up facebook for wanting too much of me (data etc)!

Is this that different?

If so I'll sign up :)

Mark
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Diaspora Handles

[Mark]

On 2 January 2011 20:55, A J Binnie  wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> ajbin...@joindiaspora.com
>
> If anyone's stuck for an invite, email me direct. Thanks to Steve for
> mine.
>
> Regards,
>
> Gus
>
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>
> Wow,

Everyone is going crazy for the invites :)
One for me then please?

Mark
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Diaspora handles

[Mark]

>
> :)
>
> --
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>

Hi all,

Just joined

markymoo (at) joindiaspora.com

feel free to aspect me :)
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Diaspora

[Mark]

On 2 January 2011 22:13, Matt Thompson  wrote:

> Hi Ronnie,
>
>
> On Sun, 2 Jan 2011, Ronnie Tucker wrote:
>
>  I've got a couple of invites left if anyone still wants one?
>>
>> --
>> *Ronnie*
>>
>
> I'd love one if you've got a spare!
>
> -Matt
>
>
> --
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>

I got 5 invites if anyone wants one?

Mark
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Diaspora

[Mark]

On 2 January 2011 22:34, Philip Stubbs  wrote:

> On 2 January 2011 22:15, Mark  wrote:
> > I got 5 invites if anyone wants one?
> > Mark
>
> Any invites left? I would love one please :-)
>
> --
> Philip Stubbs
>
> --
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> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
>

@philip and @john
Sent and on way!:)

3 left...
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Diaspora

[Mark]

Hi James,

One on its way.

--Sent from Samsung Galaxy

On 2 Jan 2011 23:07, "James Tait"  wrote:

Go on, I'll bite. I've actually been pinning my hopes on OneSocialWeb, but
things there seem to be moving slowly, and in theory they'll eventually
become interoperable once the SWAT0 [0] work is completed.

JT

[0] http://federatedsocialweb.net/wiki/SWAT0

Sent from my HTC






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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Diaspora

[Mark]

On 3 January 2011 08:04, Bob Giles  wrote:

>  Hi all,
>
> I know it may be a little late in the day but I'd be grateful for an
> invite.
>
> Bob G.
>
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>
>
My last invites sent to Bob, Dino and Kris!

Mark
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Problems using Alpine on Ubuntu 10.04

[Mark]

On 13 April 2011 21:21, Prithvi  wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> I was using Alpine, the text-based email client on Windows 7 for a while
> and it was working very well. I was very happy as I didn't have to use
> Outlook or Thunderbird, which really bog down my laptop.
>
> Today, I decided to get rid of Windows for good, and installed Ubuntu
> 10.04,
> installed and configured Alpine.
>
> Shockingly, the experience has been nothing short of frustrating!
>
> I keep getting a status message
> 'waited for x seconds for reply from server. still waiting...'
> all the time, for all my mailboxes! I never had this issue on windows!
>
> And, it asks me if I want to close the inbox (or connection), but doesn't
> accept any input, and keeps trying to open my inbox again, till it gives up
> and closes it by itself.
>
> Has anyone else been using Alpine? Have any of you guys experienced this?
>
> Prithvi
>
>
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>


Hi,

I have found that Alpine handles IMAP well, have been using it for gmail for
some time.

I havent used it for POP though.

Not wanting to sound offish (because I have lost the link) Google ALPINE and
GMAIL and you will get some good info.

Regards

Mark
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] UK Providers

[Mark]

On 26 July 2011 20:07, Ted Wager  wrote:

> Anyone tell me if it is possible for an isp  to cut down
> the download rate for one of it's clients ?
> --
> Regards
>  Ted Wager
>  Using Zorin 5 Linux
>
>
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>


Hi,

Afraid so, usually if you go outside of the fair usage policy they can
throttle your bandwidth effectively putting you in the 'naughty corner' for
about a week.

This seems standard practice with ISP with a fair usage policy but most
a fairly reasonable with the limit unless you're a heavy heavy user.

Mark
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Language spell check firefox

[Mark]

Try the localepurge package in the repo, it will automate the removal of
additional language packs.

On 5 Sep 2011 23:09, "Steve Fisher"  wrote:

Search synaptic for locales and remove the ones you do not need.

Steve

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Community distro ?

[Mark Shuttleworth]

   Michael Wood wrote:

Two things have really touched a nerve with me recently and I would like 
to open a discussion.

Firstly: 
[1]https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork#head-8c391b3699f3571c2aedfa7cb78adb4623206933

"Feisty artwork will be designed by kwwii -- of Kubuntu Edgy and KDE
Oxygen Icon fame. He will be working closely with sabdfl in the design.
Do not expect community involvement in defining this portion."

This seems to contradict entirely the description of ubuntu "Ubuntu is a
community developed, linux-based operating system " - Ubuntu.com .


   We've struggled to get a cohesive community-directed art strategy.
   Despite bringing community art contributors to our developer summits,
   funding part-time work by community artists, and having a completely
   open process of contribution, we have not been able to produce a
   unified theme through a community lead process.
   We found that our approach was resulting in an environment where new
   artists would show up and expect to be able to lead, from scratch, a
   completely new theme that was to their taste. There was no clear
   community lead, but instead multiple fragmented efforts.
   Based on a deep review of our approach, we came to the conclusion that
   it's extremely difficult to get a "core theme" that is produced by
   multiple volunteer contributors where there is no definitive lead. By
   core theme I mean wallpaper, login, splash and boot splash.
   So, for Feisty, we are saying that there are two ways the community
   can contribute:
1. Develop complete themes, which we can evaluate, and if a theme
   emerges which is clean, consistent, complete, and of high quality then
   it can be included directly in Ubuntu, but not as the default. Such a
   theme could become the default in a future release if it wins
   widespread praise in the community. So far, I have not seen a theme
   emerge which meets these criteria.
2. Contribute to the fleshing out of a theme produced by a single,
   mandated designer. That designer, in this cycle, is Kwii. Folks who
   want to flesh out the default theme need to follow Kwii's lead.

So far the Art work for Feisty has been rather doggy in my opinoin and I
don't hold a huge amount of hope for it getting better. Not saying that
Kwwii isn't a good artist but I don't see his art suiting the GNOME
Desktop. It may turn out to be excellent but the discussion, ideas and
contribution which is provided by having community involvement is going
to be completely lost.


   We looked everywhere for artists, and in the end hired Kwii because we
   thought he was the best available.

Secondly, why, with all the information i've been able to squeeze, won't
ubuntu/canonical consider sponsoring GUADEC (GNOME User And Developer
European Conference) but  were willing to be Gold Sponsor of the last
aKadamy  ? (KDE's Conference) especially considering that GNOME is the
desktop that Ubuntu and Edubuntu uses.


   Consider the total contribution and support we provide, in terms of
   full time salaries, bugs, patches, conference sponsorships, we felt
   that we already make a substantial contribution to GNOME and wanted to
   balance that with a sponsorship of KDE.

These two issues I have seem to be linked by  my feeling that ubuntu is
an organisation who's community only has a pseudo influence over
decisions that really matter. It would be in the ubuntu communities
interest to be a sponsor of GUADEC and to have community involved art
work.


   In Ubuntu, actions matter. If you really want to make an art
   contribution, it will be welcomed BUT it will need to be of world
   class standard and will need to fit in with the work being done across
   the whole project. I'm not sympathetic to someone upset that their
   single contribution does not make it in when that contribution is not
   aligned with the work that is already being done. We can't achieve
   success if we splinter and try to take a million different artistic
   lines. That's a tough position, but I think it's a necessary one.

   Mark

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[ubuntu-uk] Hello - this is me!

[Mark Harrison]

Thought I'd better introduce myself.

 

I'm Mark Harrison:

 

-  Been using *nix since 1989

-  Been using Linux since about 1994

 

My background is "big company IT" - before I set up my own company, I was
Head of Systems for Kingfisher, where I was responsible for the websites for
Woolworths, Superdrug, B&Q, Comet and Screwfix :-)

 

I'm good at architecture (both development-wise and infrastructure-wise),
lousy at detail (so a fairly rubbish coder), and more than a little
experienced at corporate politics (don't run away, consider it the art of
actually getting stuff done, or an optimisation algorithm over some fairly
non-intuitive data-structures as you see fit.)

 

I've been running an Ubuntu server on my home ADSL for my personal websites
for both business - such as  www.yourpropertyexpert.com
<http://www.yourpropertyexpert.com/>  and hobby - such as www.mog007.com
<http://www.mog007.com/> 

 

I run a couple of Ubuntu servers - the "live one" runs 6.06LTS with MySQL4,
the "development one" runs 6.06LTS with MySQL5 / PHP5, since we need a lot
more in the way of stored procedures going forward.

 

Currently in the middle of setting up a 6-server load-balanced cluster, all
running 6.06LTS (2 webheads, 2 loadbalancers, 2 database servers), so I may
be asking odd kinds of heart-beat and failover type questions, particularly
since our lead infrastructure guy has just been knocked down with pneumonia
and told by his doctor to stay in bed!

 

I ran the xap project - cross-platform open standard for home automation,
and ended up releasing a fair bit of software under the GPL (note my
comments earlier about being a good architect and a lousy coder - the apps
now run far better than they did when I'd been the one coding them!)

 

Oh, and in case the worlds of Linux and Property Investment ever cross, I
_am_ the Mark Harrison from Entrepreneur TV (Sky channel 682).

. and in case the worlds of Linux and Morgan Sports Cars ever cross, I _am_
the Mark Harrison who has been a moderator of eMog for the last 7 years!

 

And, I need to "come out" now - I do know Nik Butler. I don't agree with
everything he says, and have got into some massive rows with him over the
last few years. we've learnt not to expect perfection of each other, and
show tolerance of our different views :-)

 

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] GetGNULinux.Org

[Mark Harrison]

>From the site:

> The accurate name is GNU/Linux but "Linux" is used more often.

As I understood it, the term "GNU/Linux" refers to a distribution that
contains only GPL-compatible code.

So, Ubuntu is a Linux distribution, but not a "GNU/Linux" distribution.


There seems to be some inconsistentcy in this - sometimes Stallman's used
the definition above, but at other times he's demanded that ALL
distributions be called GNU/Linux if they include ANY GNU/HURD code.


Mark


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] [Fwd: ALL TEAMS: Speaker Representatives]

[Mark Harrison]

-Original Message-

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nik Butler

Sent: 11 April 2007 08:48

To: British Ubuntu Talk

Subject: [ubuntu-uk] [Fwd: ALL TEAMS: Speaker Representatives]

 

> Jono has asked that the various Loco teams can nominate a few speakers, to
put this in his words

 

 

--- from jono

 

> Hi all,

 

> I often get emailed with requests for Ubuntu / Kubuntu / Edubuntu etc

> speakers for different conferences around the world, and I often

> recommend people I know from different LoCo teams.

 

==

 

 

 

Right - time to step up to the microphone :-)

 

I realise that I'm new to the UbuntuUK list, so most of you don't know me,
so I'd better give a brief summary of my speaking / Linux credentials :-)

 

 

WHEN WOULD YOU WANT ME TO TALK:

 

- When you needed a "businessman who got it" to talk about how linux / FLOSS
can not only save money, but genuinely provide BETTER IT services to an
organisation.

 

 

WHEN SHOULD YOU NEVER GET ME TO TALK:

 

- When you need a detailed technical presentation about something specific.

I've not been an "Uber-techy" for about 10 years - these days I know enough
to work with Uber-techies, but not enough to be one.

 

 

*NIX / LINUX / FLOSS:

 

- I spent two years as chair of the xAP project, an open-source project for
home control. As well as co-ordinating the activities of about a dozen
different developers in thrashing out a standard for home control to which
we wrote about 60 FLOSS applications, I wrote 3 myself (all available under
the GPL, however all for Windows :-( )

 

- I was responsible for the introduction of Apache into Kingfisher plc
(FTSE-100 company), and was head of systems for their web division at a time
when it was responsible for B&Q, Comet, Woolworths, Superdrug and Screwfix.

 

- I'm currently CTO of an Internet-based financial services company. We use
Ubuntu and nothing but Ubuntu for our servers. All our services are deployed
through the web (Ajax - yey!), as a result of which we don't really have a
"desktop build". Our policy is pretty much "run what you want provided you
can see this website and get IMAP email from our server"

 

- On the side, I run a number of non-IT websites, which all run LAMP (on
Ubuntu), and generally promote OpenOffice.org whenever I've made downloads
available.

 

 

SPEAKING:

 

- In the last two years I've given 53 "public" speeches (ie speeches to
which the general public could have come, albeit in most cases for the price
of an admission ticket.) Some of these have been "professional" in the sense
that I have been paid a speaking fee - most have been "promotional" in the
sense that I was giving the speech to promote something (a company, my own
name, or in several cases, some FLOSS solutions.) Oh, and I got the figure

53 by typing "select count(appearance_name) from appearances;" at MySQL.

 

- I'm a published "spoken word CD" author (albeit on stuff that has nothing
to do with Linux), with a six-CD set published by Nightingale Conant (which
has sold copies in the low thousands), plus some self published products.

(I've shipped a job lot of 54 of my CDs today, though that was exceptional)

 

- I've given a couple of talks at my local LUG (one on Asterisk, one on
OpenSource Home Automation software, because of my involvement with the xAP

project.)

 

- I'm comfortable with an audience of about 20-500 people. Beneath 20, I
tend to have trouble "working the room". I assume that I'd be happy with
more than 500 people, but that's the biggest gig I've been booked for so far

:-)

 

 

ABOUT ME GENERALLY:

 

- I'm 36, married (to a part-time Ajax programmer), and have two kids (hence
the part-time in both of our lives.)

 

- I've worked in big companies (head of IT for one of the BP subsidiaries
across Europe) and startups. I now much prefer startups, but can still do
corporate-speak when required.

 

- I'm a co-founder of Busy Bee Networking, a business networking group sort
of like BNI (but we think better :-) - your mileage may vary), so tend to
talk "the language of business".

 

 

Regards,

 

Mark

 

 

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Orange broadband

[Mark Harrison]

It's notoriously difficult to say "my favourite broadband supplier is",
given that most people have experience of at most 2 :-) I've not been an IT
consultant for a while, but still keep in touch with former clients:

 

-  Personally, I use Eclipse, because they are able to provide me
with a block of 8 static IP addresses at no extra charge - (subject to my
filling in a RIPE form demonstrating why I need them) - however, they're not
so great I'd recommend them for "normal home use."

-  One of my clients uses Nildram for about 200 home-based workers,
and seems very happy with them.

-  My brother uses TalkTalk and finds them VERY cheap, but has had
reliability problems.

-  Another client uses BT Internet and finds them very good (which
certainly was not the case about 3 years ago!)

 

I'd suggest a look at www.adslguide.org.uk <http://www.adslguide.org.uk/>
which is a "rate my supplier" site and therefore aggregates large numbers of
customer experiences.

 

Over the past six months, Virgin has consistently outperformed Orange.. but
Nildram has consistently outperformed Virgin on speed, reliability AND
customer service.

 

Personally, given the price of them nowadays, I'd always get a router, at
which point it really doesn't matter whether they provide "Windows software"
- if your router can connect, then your linux machines can.

 

Regards,

 

Mark

 

  _  

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lee Tambiah
Sent: 19 April 2007 13:33
To: British Ubuntu Talk
Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Orange broadband

 

On 4/19/07, Dianne Reuby <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

I've had a good report on Orange broadband, from someone who uses it to
run his business. But the CD only list Windows, and website requirements
state Windows. I've asked about Linux, but while I wait for a reply, 
does anyone else use Orange broadband with Ubuntu?

TIA

Dianne Reuby

 
Ive heard the complete opposite, I've heard Orange isn't very good has a lot
of drop outs, if you can do so choose Virgin Media which was once Telewest
Broadband(blueyonder), they provide a very good connection. In my opnion the
best one out there! You will have no problems with Linux detecting it
either.

 

ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/  <https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/> 

 

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[ubuntu-uk] Should I move to Feisty?

[Mark Harrison]

As I write, I have a stack of four servers that need to "go live" next week
sitting on the floor next to me.

Two web-heads, two database servers - all installed with Edgy about a week
ago and working nicely as a cluster.

Now the key question - for SERVER use, is it worth doing the upgrade now, or
should I just sit tight and stick with an installation that is working
reliably and holding up under load-testing?

M.




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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Should I move to Feisty?

[Mark Harrison]

Baz / Alan / Leon,

Thanks for the advice.

I went for Edgy rather than Dapper because (AIUI), MySQL5 was standard in
Edgy and MySQL4 in Dapper - and the codebase we are running needs MySQL5 -
(lots of stored procedures: in fact, as of last night, exactly 100 of them!)

I think I'll stay with Edgy for the server farm.

Regards,

Mark



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Re: [ubuntu-uk] New member saying hi.

[Mark Harrison]

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Peter Lewis
Sent: 20 April 2007 17:25
To: ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com
Subject: [ubuntu-uk] New member saying hi.

> Hi people,

[...]

> Pete
---

Pete,

Welcome.

You'll find Ubuntu WAY different from Gentoo :-)

Regards,

Mark




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[ubuntu-uk] SSL Certs

[Mark Harrison]

Hi all,

 

A quick question for you. I have to launch a website next week, which needs
some "https" stuff.

 

I can manage all the Apache side of things (6.06 LTS - Server), but I'm
wondering where to get the certificate from.

 

 

It's a vital part of the requirement that it just "appear OK to customers
with IE", so I need a CA that Redmond like :-(

 

I've had bad experiences with Verisign in the past - are there better
alternatives?

 

M.

 

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Newbie Question: best quick backup method - please!!

[Mark Harrison]

>From the fact you say you're "new to both Linux and Ubuntu", I'm assuming
that you have another machine running Windows / MacOS / something you're
happy with.

If I'm editing a configuration file in Ubuntu, I normally make a backup file
in the same directory with the "cp" (copy) command, so I'd run something
like:

"sudo cp application.conf application.conf.bak"

Then, if there's a problem, I just copy back

"sudo cp application.conf.bak application.conf"


If I'm doing something more "serious" that might just might bring down a lot
of the system, I tend to copy vital data off the machine as follows:

1: I change to the directory I want to back up (assume it has
subdirectories), using the cd command

2: "sudo cp -r * ~mark/backup"

- this copies (including subdirectories because of the "-r" option)  all the
files into the "backup" subdirectory of my home directory "~mark" - you'll
need to replace mark with your own username

- running it as sudo copies files that only administrator has access to

3: I then use an ftp client (like Filezilla) to copy the files out of
/home/mark/backup (which is what ~mark means) onto another box, such as my
Windows laptop.

- Filezilla is a nice drag and drop interface, which will allow you to copy
off entire directory structures.

- In order to get this to work, you may find you need to install an ftp
server on Ubuntu. The following will work, and also give a good introduction
to how you install packages from the command line :-) If you have a GUI on
your Ubuntu box, then you can run Synaptic and let it sort everything out
for you, but I don't, so I can't :-)

3i: Enable "extra repositories" by uncommenting various lines in /etc/etc
(you will need to run "sudo nano /etc/apt" to do this, then remove the #
symbols from the things that look like URLs - at this point, I tend to put a
# symbol in in front of the CD, so that I am naturally installing from the
Internet rather than the CD which is often elsewhere.)

3ii: Run "sudo aptitude update" which will update the package manager with
the appropriate information about where to get the new server files from.

3iii: I tend to run the ftp server from the so-called "INETD" superserver,
so I need to install that first with "sudo aptitude install netkit-inetd"

3iv: Then I can run "sudo aptitude install proftpd" and install the FTP
server.





-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Passive PROFITS
Sent: 23 April 2007 17:31
To: British Ubuntu Talk
Subject: [ubuntu-uk] Newbie Question: best quick backup method - please!!

Hi All,

This is my first post to the list.  I'm new to both
Lunux and Ubuntu, though I've tried on and off over
the last 10 years to get a linux installation working,
finally, with Ubuntu, I've done it (or more accurately
the OS community has!!).

Anyway.  Having just fully set up my desktop (LAMP
installation of server running fine!), I've just
trashed it by misconfiguring x.org config.  I perhaps
could have tried some neat boot CD to fix it, but
thought better, and have just started completely
reinstalling.

My question, so I don't end up losing a day (again!)
is what is the best method for me to backup my / ??

FWIW, I've only got one partition spare on my current
HD.  It's large enough to copy / to, but it is
currently formatted as NTFS.

Questions:

1.  Which utility do I use to back-up / ?

nb:  I understand I can simply zip/gz/tar the whole
drive's contents  is that right!?

2.  Can I back up direct from / (ex3) to NTFS
(or do I need to format current NTFS to ex3 1st?

Quick answer giving me a SIMPLE solution (as I'm
completely new to CLI etc, too!!) really appreciated
QUICKLY!!   I'll need to do this backup in a
couple of hours (overnight tonight latest!) ...

TIA,

PassivePROFITS (a.k.a PP)



__
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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Leaflets

[Mark Harrison]

Right - I'll step forward as a marketeer :-)

However, in typical marketing style, I'm going to answer the question I 
wish you'd asked instead... hence I'm going to talk about the general 
"flyers for use at shows" issue, rather than the specifics of "how to 
craft a flyer that explicitly has the purpose of answering questions."


We had a long discussion discussion in the Sussex LUG about the leaflets 
to use for the British Computer Fair stands that the LUG runs each month.

The FLYER that we designed at that point (and reportedly worked well at 
attracting attention) can be found at

   http://www.youraffiliateexpert.com/temp/   - versions in ODP and PDF 
formats

I ought now to explain WHY I recommended this approach.

- The purpose of the flyer was to make people stop at the stand, and ask 
more. It was NOT to answer people's questions. The logic was that it was 
far more effective to "hook" someone with a bold leaflet, and then get 
them into a 1-1 conversation with someone who could relate to their 
issues, than to try to create a "reference document" for people to take 
away and not read. I'm in favour, BTW, of creating a takeaway reference 
document as proposed, but I think that a flyer to get people to "stop at 
the table" is helpful at any show.

- This is ONE example to show the format of the leaflet. There were 
several others, each with a photo, a name, a job title and a catchy 
soundbite. At BCF, the majority of attendees are NOT IT professionals, 
so we deliberately tried to pick references who worked outside the IT 
industry as well to plant some rapport into the minds of the passers-by 
that this WASN'T something that only appealed to "geeks". Obviously, at 
an IT-industry event, it would be far more sensible to pick 
people/soundbites that were from the industry ; or if it were a travel 
industry event, to pick them from the travel industry, or for a local 
government event, to pick them from local government, or... well you get 
the idea - create a feeling in the mind of the passerby that the person 
on the leaflet is similar to them, and faces similar issues.

- Each flyer had a consistent layout - name/title top left, photo top 
right, quote middle, "...just another person to switch to linux" 
bottom middle, Tux bottom left. Obviously, this was for a LUG - if the 
Ubuntu_UK list wants to do something, then it should have an Ubuntu logo 
instead.

- The tagline "just another person to switch to linux" is 
important, since it contains what is known in NLP as an embedded 
command. There are parts of the brain that process the entire structure 
of the sentence literally. However, modern thinking in neuroscience is 
that there are independent "clusters" within the brain that just store 
particular entities. In this case, I used the  ..  to discretely 
highlight the phrase "switch to linux" as a discretely parsable entity. 
The entity as part of the whole sentence is just a subsidiary clause - 
however the entity on its own is a command "switch to Linux", hence 
the use of the term "embedded command". I'd still go with the phrase but 
make it specific, so "Just another person to switch to Ubuntu". Again, 
it's critical that this phrase is common, and used across various 
slides, each of which carries a different name, face and quote.



I will come to the question of the "FAQ flyer" though. What I would 
strongly suggest is that the place to start is experience of discussions 
with a typical show attendee (you'll have to profile them somehow if 
it's the first time you're going to a given show", and try to work out 
what the FREQUENTLY asked questions are. Too often, FAQs are a 
mis-acronym for "questions our marketing people wish you'd asked", 
presumably on the basis that QOMPWYA doesn't form an easy-to-say word :-)



Oh, and you're welcome to use the flyer if you want, particularly if you 
change Tux to Ubuntu logo, and change the word Linux to Ubuntu. The 
author photo is copyright ric bacon, and I have a waiver from him 
allowing me to use it for unlimited purposes (including commercial 
purposes.) 'Twas a good deal - he assigned me those rights in exchange 
for a photographer credit in my book - see even my marketing material 
doesn't breach copyright :-)


Regards,

Mark Harrison


Ad follows - feel free to stop reading now:-)

Mark Harrison is available for (paid) marketing consultancy. He 
specialises in taking firms from the sub-million turnover mark to 
flotation. He is not cheap, but very, very, busy. Next available 
consultancy days are in July.


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Leaflets

[Mark Harrison]

BTW: Apologies if you all get this twice - I'm having trouble with my 
"identies" in Thunderbird :-)

==


Right - I'll step forward as a marketeer :-)

However, in typical marketing style, I'm going to answer the question I 
wish you'd asked instead... hence I'm going to talk about the general 
"flyers for use at shows" issue, rather than the specifics of "how to 
craft a flyer that explicitly has the purpose of answering questions."


We had a long discussion discussion in the Sussex LUG about the leaflets 
to use for the British Computer Fair stands that the LUG runs each month.

The FLYER that we designed at that point (and reportedly worked well at 
attracting attention) can be found at

   http://www.youraffiliateexpert.com/temp/   - versions in ODP and PDF 
formats

I ought now to explain WHY I recommended this approach.

- The purpose of the flyer was to make people stop at the stand, and ask 
more. It was NOT to answer people's questions. The logic was that it was 
far more effective to "hook" someone with a bold leaflet, and then get 
them into a 1-1 conversation with someone who could relate to their 
issues, than to try to create a "reference document" for people to take 
away and not read. I'm in favour, BTW, of creating a takeaway reference 
document as proposed, but I think that a flyer to get people to "stop at 
the table" is helpful at any show.

- This is ONE example to show the format of the leaflet. There were 
several others, each with a photo, a name, a job title and a catchy 
soundbite. At BCF, the majority of attendees are NOT IT professionals, 
so we deliberately tried to pick references who worked outside the IT 
industry as well to plant some rapport into the minds of the passers-by 
that this WASN'T something that only appealed to "geeks". Obviously, at 
an IT-industry event, it would be far more sensible to pick 
people/soundbites that were from the industry ; or if it were a travel 
industry event, to pick them from the travel industry, or for a local 
government event, to pick them from local government, or... well you get 
the idea - create a feeling in the mind of the passerby that the person 
on the leaflet is similar to them, and faces similar issues.

- Each flyer had a consistent layout - name/title top left, photo top 
right, quote middle, "...just another person to switch to linux" 
bottom middle, Tux bottom left. Obviously, this was for a LUG - if the 
Ubuntu_UK list wants to do something, then it should have an Ubuntu logo 
instead.

- The tagline "just another person to switch to linux" is 
important, since it contains what is known in NLP as an embedded 
command. There are parts of the brain that process the entire structure 
of the sentence literally. However, modern thinking in neuroscience is 
that there are independent "clusters" within the brain that just store 
particular entities. In this case, I used the  ..  to discretely 
highlight the phrase "switch to linux" as a discretely parsable entity. 
The entity as part of the whole sentence is just a subsidiary clause - 
however the entity on its own is a command "switch to Linux", hence 
the use of the term "embedded command". I'd still go with the phrase but 
make it specific, so "Just another person to switch to Ubuntu". Again, 
it's critical that this phrase is common, and used across various 
slides, each of which carries a different name, face and quote.



I will come to the question of the "FAQ flyer" though. What I would 
strongly suggest is that the place to start is experience of discussions 
with a typical show attendee (you'll have to profile them somehow if 
it's the first time you're going to a given show", and try to work out 
what the FREQUENTLY asked questions are. Too often, FAQs are a 
mis-acronym for "questions our marketing people wish you'd asked", 
presumably on the basis that QOMPWYA doesn't form an easy-to-say word :-)



Oh, and you're welcome to use the flyer if you want, particularly if you 
change Tux to Ubuntu logo, and change the word Linux to Ubuntu. The 
author photo is copyright ric bacon, and I have a waiver from him 
allowing me to use it for unlimited purposes (including commercial 
purposes.) 'Twas a good deal - he assigned me those rights in exchange 
for a photographer credit in my book - see even my marketing material 
doesn't breach copyright :-)


Regards,

Mark Harrison


Ad follows - feel free to stop reading now:-)

Mark Harrison is available for (paid) marketing consultancy. He 
specialises in taking firms from the sub-million turnover mark to 
flotation. He is not cheap, but very, very, busy. Next available 
consultancy days are in July.



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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Leaflets

[Mark Harrison]

Ian Pascoe wrote:
> One question that's been missed off all of this valuable discussions is:
>
> "Why should I try this Linux thingy?"
>   
PROLOGUE -  I'm going to be contentious.

I ought to explain that TheVeech and I exchanged emails offlist last 
night, in which we agreed that a bit of "violent discussion" would both 
lead to a better result than any individual could come up with AND 
hopefully spark contributions from people who have sat on the sidelines.

BTW - if you want to carry on sitting on the sidelines and just reading, 
that's absolutely fine with me. However, I do find that many more people 
say nothing because they (wrongly) don't believe that they know enough 
than say things when they they are actually misunderstanding the issues. 
We generally get to better answers if more people join in.

On that basis, if you all join in to tell me I'm wrong in what I'm 
writing below - that's FANTASTIC - it's the kind of thing I can use to 
improve my understanding and arguments in the future.



MAIN ACT - I don't like "free" as a selling point unless I'm talking to 
someone where I know I have a minimum of 5 minutes to run through the issue.

"Free" works very well in a longer format, like the recent BBC radio 
programme mentioned on the list a week or so ago.

However, in a "moment of truth", one of the hardest problems to overcome 
is what happens to potential users when you mention the word "free", and 
most people will make a "snap decision" inside a ludicrously short 
period of time, rather than bothering to listen to the arguments.

When most people hear the "free" word, they think "zero cost":

So for people thinking about an existing PC, it's a non-issue. They 
already have a copy of an O/S and continuing to use that is "free" in 
the money sense. The "no money" issue only applies if people were 
thinking of changing to Vista [1] or thinking of getting a new PC [2]

Note 1: I suspect that another few months of horror stories about people 
who try to upgrade from XP to Vista will stop people wanting to do that.
Note 2: Oh for a UK "household name" manufacturer who could ship Ubuntu. 
See other thread(s) about why we need to keep the pressure on Dell to 
offer this in the UK as well as the States AND why we need to make 
D*&mned sure that the price of a PC with Ubuntu is less than the price 
of a PC with Vista.


The problem with saying "free" and meaning "freedom" is that you then 
have to explain the difference. There are two issues that arise with this:

Firstly, some people get put off and think "that you're deliberately 
misusing words", and all the other things that _I_ get accused of :-)

Secondly, most people aren't programmers, and therefore don't understand 
(short of a long conversation) why freedom to modify source code is 
overall good for them EVEN IF THEY THEMSELVES NEVER DO IT.

Most people think "I'm not a programmer, I'm never going to change the 
code, so it's of no benefit to me" rather than "Because lots of 
programmers can see what's really going on, the total community of 
skilled people available to fix bugs and add new features is far bigger 
than any single company, even one as big as Microsoft, could ever afford."


Personally, I always like tables that say "When should you use X, when 
should you use Y" that deliberately come up with circumstances when 
using a competitor's product is better - they come over as honest (even 
if they are always self serving.)... and you also make the reasons to 
use the competitor sound very niche.


Why Linux?

- It's stable - most of the world's web servers and email servers run 
Linux because it crashes much, much less.

- It's more secure - Linux was developed with a sophsticated security 
model from the ground up, and Ubuntu applies a set of defaults that mean 
that, even if a user clicks on a virus by mistake, they won't make it 
infect the PC. (As an aside, most viruses are written to only work on 
Windows - because it's a lot easier to write a virus that attacks Windows.)

- There are a huge number of applications specifically designed to work 
together. In the Windows world it's very easy for a programmer to write 
one program that accidently causes another program to stop working. On 
Linux, because of the way that the code used to write programs is almost 
always available, it's very, very hard for a program to have these 
problems. Indeed, one of the things the Ubuntu community does is 
specifically check that things won't interfere with each other before 
they are included in a distribution.


Why Windows?

- At the moment, more PC vendors ship machines with Windows 
pre-installed than have Linux as an option. (However, many small local 
manufacturers offer Linux - it tends to be the big US multinationals 
that are pro-Microsoft, and Dell have recently started shipping Linux as 
an option, though today that's only available in the US.)

- Some applications are written to only work on Windows. In most cases 
(email, web 

Re: [ubuntu-uk] Leaflets

[Mark Harrison]

Jim,

You make a lot of good points.

1: Your list of extra applications that users want that I'd not come up 
with is excellent, and I'd certainly want to include it.

2: Your observations about the "ongoing licencing cost of carrying on 
with the copy of Windows you already have doesn't take into account 
Anti-Virus and other subscriptions" is a DAMNED GOOD ONE, and gives me a 
fantastically better answer to the "so what if it's free - I've already 
got Windows" argument when talking about "as in pizza."

BTW, I know that pizza isn't the traditional one here, but I don't drink 
beer, and the phrase "free, as in red wine" just doesn't translate :-)


I want to further explain myself in a couple of areas, and disagree with 
you on one :-)

1: The logic of the "linux is stable... most of the www and email 
servers use it" was not intended to imply "These people use it, and they 
have needs similar to yours..." Instead it was meant to imply "The kind 
of people who REALLY care about their machines not crashing choose 
Linux", and "because Linux is build to this level of reliability, then 
it's certainly going to be reliable enough for your needs."


2: The NTL problem is specific to some regions. NTL have grown not by 
rolling out a standard system, but by buying up legacy local cable 
companies. As a result of this, there is a mismash of odd "cable 
broadband" solutions out there under the NTL brand. (This is why I wrote 
"...in some areas.") In some areas, for example Clanfield (just north of 
Porstmouth), a friend of mine had exactly this problem. The broadband 
solution was two-box - a set-top-box that was provided, and a specific 
USB network card, that came with Windows software that "registered" as a 
one-off, the MAC address of the NTL card with a particular subscriber. 
Looking back, I was trying to set up a router as well as a Linux box, 
and in the end the only way we could get it to work was to firstly 
register the MAC address in Windows, then go into the router's config 
and use MAC address spoofing to make it look as if it was the USB thing 
that NTL had supplied, then set up the linux box via the router. This is 
why I said something that boiled down to that "you may need a local 
expert to set this kind of thing up". Had it been a single PC running 
Windows, it all worked out of the box.


3: I want to disagree with you on one thing you pulled me up for. And 
it's a "taken in context" disagreement rather than an absolute 
disagreement...

I wrote:
 >>Ubuntu applies a set of defaults that mean that, even if a user 
clicks on a virus by mistake, they won't make it infect the PC.

You responded:
 > Don't just single out Ubuntu for praise. All *nix's share these 
attributes.

Firstly: We're in the middle of a thread about Marketing on the 
Ubuntu-UK mailing list :-) I make no apology for promoting Ubuntu 
generally, but specially not on this particular list :-)

Secondly: It is, alas, not true that all *nix's share these attributes. 
There have been well-publicised examples of Linux distributions where 
the ONLY user account created was root, and that all applications the 
user ran ran as root. I agree it doesn't apply to Debian / Suse / Gentoo 
/ Fedora / [insert your favourite here], but the point behind this is 
that the security model is only as secure as its set of default choices.

I wanted to allude to the fact that in choosing Linux, the average user 
is in fact choosing a specific distribution, and wanted to play up (as I 
did again later about applications working together) Ubuntu as a good 
choice :-)

Regards,

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Leaflets [long reply]

[Mark Harrison]

Chris Rowson wrote:
> Hey Nik,
>
> I don't dispute savings in the SME arena mate. But I'm more interested
> in the processes by which large, corporate and public sector
> organisations can save money.
>
> I work in public sector IT, and I feel somewhat like I'm banging my
> head against a brick wall trying to introduce OSS into my workplace.
> I've had some small triumphs, but the noose of MS hangs tight around
> the necks of most corporate IT directors unfortunately

Chris,

Tell me about it :-)

I found that the strategy that worked for me was to get in the "back 
office systems".

Start with "heavy infrastructure" things like:

- Proxy servers
- Mail relays
- DNS servers

... then move to web servers (which is actually quite a big deal if 
you've already got an ASP site)

... then email servers... (a bigger deal again)

... then the desktop (I've found that a Firefox. then OpenOffice.org 
... then Thunderbird then  ooh, a Linux desktop, not a Windows 
one) works better that "big bang".


The problem you're up against is that, in a large organisation, the 
software licence costs are typically no more than 10-15% of the IT 
budget... and that the (current) "transfer costs" of switching to a new 
set of support staff / providers can far outweigh the (future) license 
savings unless you can hit them at a point where they were about to 
"upgrade" anyway.

M.




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[ubuntu-uk] Reconfiguring EXIM4 on 6.10.... mind gone blank

[Mark Harrison]

I'm having a "senior moment".

There is a single command I need to run to take my EXIM4 configuration 
back to the "start here, answer these basic questions, and I'll set up 
your config for you" menu set last seen while installing the O/S, and I 
can't, for the life of me, remember it.

Help ?

M.




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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Reconfiguring EXIM4 on 6.10.... mind gone blank

[Mark Harrison]

Alan Pope wrote:
> On Wed, May 09, 2007 at 04:01:28PM +0100, Mark Harrison wrote:
>   
>> I'm having a "senior moment".
>>
>> There is a single command I need to run to take my EXIM4 configuration 
>> back to the "start here, answer these basic questions, and I'll set up 
>> your config for you" menu set last seen while installing the O/S, and I 
>> can't, for the life of me, remember it.
>>
>> 
>
>
> sudo dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config
>
> Cheers,
> Al.
That's the one - cheers.

I'd tried all combinations of "exim4-configure" and "dpkg-config" and 
the like, and missed out the "re" :-)

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Eurovision Song contest internet stream

[Mark Harrison]

Dave Walker wrote:
> This isn't linux's fault - it's octoshape's.  The only differences is
> that they have 'packaged' the windows to make it easily installable.
>   
How easy is it to make a Linux package? One of the nice things about 
Windows (as a developer) is that making up an installation package is 
very straightforward.

I've not written any code on Linux for about 5 years, and I'm hopeful 
the world has moved on, but last time I was coding, there were far 
better IDEs available on Windows.

M.

> Can't complain too much, as at least they have bothered to make it
> multi-platformed.
>
> Maybe next year Octoshape's plug-in will be in a repository - then it
> will be easier to install than any other OS. :)
>
> Kind Regards,
> Dave Walker
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] regarding for solution

[Mark Harrison]

fatma oymak wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I have one problemI couldnt find right answer...do you have any idea? 
> please please let me know
>
> many thanks
> fatma
>
>
> "Consider the behaviour of two machines in a distributed system. 
> Both have clocks that are supposed to tick 1000 times per millisecond. One 
> of them ticks 990 times per millisecond. The other ticks 1015  times per 
> millisecond. If the system designer want to guarantee that clocks of these 
> two machines never differ by more than 5 seconds, how often must be clocks 
> be re-synchronized? Supposing that all machines in this distributed systems 
> come from same manufacturer and the maximum drift rate is specified as 1.0%, 
> how often must the clocks of this system must be re-synchonized  if the 
> system designers want to guarantee that clocks of these two machines never 
> differ by more than 5 seconds? Describe in steps how you get your 
> result...
>   
Part 1: At least every 200 seconds - the difference between them gets 
.025 seconds (25 milliseconds) bigger each "tick", so it will take 200 
seconds for them to be 5 seconds apart (at which point the "fast" clock 
will read 202.02 is, and the "slow" clock will read 197.04 ish)

Part 2: Consider the "pathalogical case" of variance, where one 
over-ticks by 1% and one under-ticks by one percent, so once is at 990 
ms and the other at 1110 ms - hence the divergence is 20ms per tick... 
so it takes 250 ticks to diverge by five seconds. The third clock is 
irrelevant, since it has to be somewhere either at one of these 
extremes, or between them, so will never read further apart than the two 
pathalogical outliers.

As an implementation issue, assuming that this can somehow be made 
Ubuntu-related, I'd sync each every minute with a crontab job :-)

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] regarding for solution[Scanned]

[Mark Harrison]

Paul Brunt wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm not 100% sure but this would make sense as the first answer to me:
> the machine with 990 ticks should be experiencing time at
> (990/1000) of real time
> the machine with 1015 ticks should be experiencing time at
> (1015/1000) of real time
> The length of time it would take the two systems to go out of sync be 
> 5 seconds would be:
> (1015/1000)a - (990/1000)a = 5
> where "a" is the time needed between syncs
> so answer is 200 seconds
>
> Sorry, but the I've not really got time to work out the second one 
> right now. I'll try and get back to it at some point if someone hasn't 
> beaten me to it ;-)
>
> Thanks
>
> Paul

Paul,

I was in the middle of typing mine when yours came in, so as far as I'm 
concerned, you've won, particularly given we came up with the same 
answer  :-)

However, I'll claim the prize for part 2 :-)

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Introductions and Init script bug query

[Mark Harrison]

christopher chatfield wrote:
> This is such a good community I wonder whether it
> qualifies for charitable status? It may help with fundraising
> particularly for any legal challenges.
>   

I believe that it's generally regarded that having a multi-millionaire 
sugardaddy [1] trumps charitable status :-)

As a more serious point, there are significant restrictions on the 
"political activities" that a charity can undertake. I know that many 
members of the Ubuntu community would stray into areas classed as 
political lobbying in some of the things that we are trying to 
accomplish, for example efforts to ensure that the European Patent 
system does not expand in scope.

Regards,

Mark



[1] I suspect that sugardaddy isn't quite the right word - maybe we 
should have another naming competition to find a better one :-)



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Re: [ubuntu-uk] regarding for solution

[Mark Harrison]

Alan Pope wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-05-16 at 14:43 +0100, fatma oymak wrote:
>   
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I have one problemI couldnt find right answer...do you have any idea? 
>> please please let me know
>> 
>
> Haha. 1 point for effort for getting other people to do your
> school/college/uni assignments - minus 10 points to everyone who has
> answered so far :)
>
> Cheers,
> Al.
>   
Plus 20 for the respondents who tried to bring in an Ubuntu reference to 
their answers :-)

Plus 100 for those who realise that it's important to meet people new to 
the community on their terms, and reel them in gently :-) :-)

Plus 1000 for those who try to turn this into a "what do students what 
out of Linux - free answers to their homework" thread :-) :-) :-)

Minus 5000 for those who try to come up with a list of increasingly 
valuable points reasons to justify their having answered.. DAMN!


M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Who writes this stuff [long post]

[Mark Harrison]

Matthew Macdonald-Wallace wrote:

[Long post snipped]

Matthew,

Good message.

I've just come off the phone from Mr. Scargill, who is an incredibly 
reasonable chap with some very positive things to say about Ubuntu.

The point on which I absolutely agree with him is that 
integration/interoperability - for many businesses, this is the most 
important factor, since the costs of sorting out interfacing issues can 
(and in my experience frequently do) cost rather more than the software 
licences.

He said that Ubuntu is the best version of Linux he has ever seen. He 
said that if he were starting a small business from scratch for 
office-based staff, he would use Ubuntu on the desktop. He also said 
that he had not yet come across good Linux tools that supported the 
mobile user base as well as the Exchange Mobile solution, so if he had 
mainly a field-based operation, he'd probably still go with Microsoft SBS.

He said that he would like to know of any good tools to provide Exchange 
Mobile - equivalent solution for messaging (not email, but the more 
generic messaging problems.) I'm with him on that - I have a good email 
client (ThunderBird), but it's not a replacement for Outlook (as opposed 
to Outlook Express.)

His biggest criticism of Linux is that what we see as "choice" is very 
close to "confusion". And that one man's "modular solution" is another's 
"set of different packages that need to be bolted together".


What I think that we, as a group, often miss is that most people want a 
balance between "choice" and "certainty." In some areas - the car I 
drive - I want to absolutely be able to pick something quirky and 
unusual (which is why I drive a Morgan.)

In other areas, like say laser printers, I just want the certainty of 
dealing with something I'm familiar with and that I know will work 
(which is why I have an old HP Laserjet 4M Plus and an HP Colour 
Laserjet 2600n) - because I knew that I would be able to take them out 
of the box, and get them working in five minutes.

While, on my personal PC, I want to be able to fiddle and install 
whatever software I want, when I was running helpdesks I had a duty to 
keep the overall cost of IT (not the licence cost - but the overall 
cost) down, because that was the mandate from the Board. The easiest way 
to keep costs down is to have complete standardisation across the 
organisation (I was supporting about 2,000 people across 6 locations) - 
that meant that I needed to have my desktop support staff trained in one 
set of applications - as a result of that, we could concentrate on 
building value-added services that would work across that set. Our 
problems came when one unit wanted, say, to use Excel instead of 123... 
or Word instead of WordPerfect (this was about 7 years ago - now the MS 
solutions are the incumbents...)


The biggest thing we could do as a community to expand the installed 
reach of Linux would be to persuade Dell and PC World to offer Linux 
with a range of "cheapest" PCs... so that it became the value option. 
The reason that I'm on the Ubuntu list rather than that of any other 
distro is that I see the Ubuntu foundation / Canonical as the group with 
the most clear vision of how they are going to achieve that.


When people raise criticisms, the winning approach is NEVER to say 
"You're wrong - you need to do X, Y, and Z", but always to say "Good 
point - what can we do to improve it?"


Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fresh install, multiple users, moving /home

[Mark Harrison]

Chris Rowson wrote:
>> I should have remembered: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.
>> :-)
>>
>>
>> Hwyl,
>> Neil.
>> 
>
> Hey Neil
>
> I always remembered another P being in there too!!! ;-)
>
> Chris
>
>   

Indeed, the full phrase is:

Proper PRIOR Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

Or were you thinking of something else? :-)

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell Ubuntu pricing revealed...

[Mark Jose]

On Saturday 26 May 2007 11:31, LeeUKHA wrote:
> I just compared a Vista vs. Fiesty Inspiron laptop and the answer is
>
> It's (like for like*) $29 cheaper to buy a Vista laptop and install
> Fiesty on it yourself...
>
> Jeez... only Dell could replace a $40 OS with a free one and make it $69
> more expensive...  I really despair sometimes
>
> Lee
> *The headline Ubuntu laptop comes with half the memory and integrated
> graphics...

The price is actually less than that for the Vista version - 
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070525-windows-tax-is-50-according-to-dell-linux-pc-pricing.html

Seems several reports of the price being more with Linux were incorrect.

Mark - new to list

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell Ubuntu pricing revealed...

[Mark Jose]

On Saturday 26 May 2007 15:03, LeeUKHA wrote:

> I went direct to Dell's website, and compared an Inspiron E1505N laptop
> (the Linux version) with an MS E1505.
>
> At first glance, the Linux version is cheaper, until you realise, it's
> only got half the RAM and onboard graphics. Add those to the list and
> it's $29 more expensive than the MS version...
>
> So I'm not sure where "Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden" gets the $50
> cheaper from...
>
> Lee :(

That seems to be a common trait with PC sellers - they assume that because we 
tend not to pay for our OS, that we want cheap (i.e low quality) hardware.
>From my own experience, that is a serious miscalculation - most Linux users I 
know have very high end kit.
Ebuyer for example often have systems for sale which have Linux installed - 
but they are always bottom spec stuff - built in graphics, small hard drives 
and low end processors with tiny amounts of ram. 
  Perhaps Dell are doing this to stop us clamouring for 
Linux installed systems? Sell a limited range of machines, in the USA only, 
with low spec hardware and then, when sales are poor, they can turn round and 
say that they tried but...  

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] ubuntu-uk website broken

[Mark Jose]

On Tuesday 29 May 2007 13:45, Jonathan Riddell wrote:
> The ubuntu-uk website seems to be broken, all I can see is a border
> and a drop down box that doesn't do anything.
>
> It's not just a case of someone not testing it on Konqueror, it's equally
> broken in w3m so it doubless breaks disability legislation as well as
> being plain rude to people who happen not to use the same browser as
> the website author.
>
> Jonathan

Must admit I had not used Konqueror to visit the site.
But, firing it up in Konq does give the issue Jonathon describes.
The error is - 
Error: http://ubuntu-uk.org/: TypeError: Value undefined (result of expression 
$("q").addEvent) is not an object. Cannot be called.

On Firefox with scripts disabled, the site shows fine.

Interestingly, before the site is fully loaded, a dialog box appears, stating 
that a script is causing KHTML to freeze and asking if you wish to continue. 
Opening the Ubuntu home page itself also gives the same error message! So 
maybe the Ubuntu site has a similar issue?  Note that the Ubuntu site does 
load in Konq, but the error message is there on both sites.

Mark


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] dapper to fiesty

[Mark Harrison]

Gregory Kirby wrote:
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes
>   
>> thanks all...giving it a go  David.
>> 
>
> Is this spam?
>
>   
>> AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free
>> 
> >from AOL at AOL.com.
>
>
>  G
Gregory,

David posted a message with a single line (presumably automatically 
added by his ISP) that promoted AOL.

You posted a message with THREE lines (preumably automatically added by 
the list server) that promoted Ubuntu.

I don't think that we can accuse people of being spammers just because 
some email server they use happens to auto-add signatures :-)

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dells with Ubuntu

[Mark Harrison]

Alec Wright wrote:
>
> It's not about the price. It's about not giving money to Microsoft for
> something you're not going to use. It's about not having to bother about
> installing Ubuntu yourself. It's about being guaranteed Ubuntu
> compatible hardware.
>   

It may not be about price to YOU.

It certainly is about price for a lot of people.

M.

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[ubuntu-uk] Testing websites

[Mark Harrison]

Not particularly Ubuntu related, but a couple of comments for web 
developers:

1: I've found the "Firebug" plugin for Firefox is a very, very good tool 
for testing for potential JavaScript errors.

2: There are some standard JavaScript objects that exist as part of the 
DOM in some browsers, but not in others. You can't rely on JavaScript 
version checking OR Browser version checking to identify them - it's 
better practice to wrapper them in an "if object exists" loop.


M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dells with Ubuntu

[Mark Harrison]

Alec Wright wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-05-30 at 08:50 +0100, Mark Harrison wrote:
>   
>> It may not be about price to YOU.
>>
>> It certainly is about price for a lot of people.
>>
>> M.
>> 
> Well, to me, £30 extra or whatever it is is worth it if you're getting
> compatible hardware, and not having to go through the hassle of
> installing ubuntu etc.
>   
Agreed - I'd be very tempted by this PC for exactly the reasons you state.

However, having Ubuntu appear as the "expensive option" is going to make 
it harder for us all to go on about "you're paying a Microsoft tax" with 
any credibility.

The counter argument, of course, is that you ARE paying a Microsoft tax, 
but that this tax is subsidised by the suppliers of subscription-based 
software who pre-install a "trial version" and pay Dell enough for the 
privilege that Dell can ship the box with MS software plus $$$ software 
for LESS than the cost of the Linux alternative.

Perhaps, therefore, the next piece in the jigsaw is for us to find an 
ISP who is willing to pony up the kind of sums that AOL are for having 
"Linux-friendly ISP setup - just click here" icons pre-installed.


M.




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[ubuntu-uk] Web forum software for Ubuntu (Edgy server) - recommendations wanted

[Mark Harrison]

Hi all,

I'm looking for some "web forum" software to run on Edgy. Can you 
recommend me something?

My requirements (in order of importance, most important first) are:

- Free as in beer
- Free as in speech (I might need to write a username registration 
handler at some point)
- Has a backend that can live in PHP 5
- Has a backend that can run on a different server from the front-end, 
and cope with multiple webheads
- Has an admin model that allows me to authorise a few other people to 
be "user admins" to weed out the obvious SPAM
- Ideally, an anti-spam plugin (also free) that "sort of works like 
Askimet" :-)


And please note that, yes, I really mean forums, not 
mailing-list-server. Normally I hate web-only forums, but this 
particular job has a customer base who are actually calling for them.

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Web forum software for Ubuntu (Edgy server) - recommendations wanted

[Mark Harrison]

Lee Tambiah wrote:
> On 5/30/07, *Mark Harrison* <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm looking for some "web forum" software to run on Edgy. Can you
> recommend me something?
>
>
> PHPBB
>
> http://www.phpbb.com/

Lee,

Good call - once I knew what it was called, I could google for Ubuntu 
installation instructions :-)

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PhpBB2

Now working fine

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Wireless Cracking was setting up bt home hub in ubuntu

[Mark Harrison]

baza wrote:
> What you have to remember is not to trust any security on your network. 
> But, you can over do it. All of the 'hackers' I know won't sit outside 
> your house trying to crack your WEP to get your eBay password etc.
>
> One of the simplest things you can do to keep people off your bandwidth 
> is switch your router off when you're not going to use it. Saves 
> electricity too.
>
>
> Baz.
>
>   
Or you can do completely the opposite

Explicitly ALLOW passersby to use your wireless network, free of charge, 
and advertise the fact (on sites like www.consume.net)

We do this (a technology company), but plenty of other companies are, to 
name just a couple, a cafe-bar in the middle of Horsham, a Morgan car 
dealer... In both cases they did it to promote their core services 
"browse the Internet while you have a drink" or "browse the Internet 
while you car is being MOTd".

We have two wireless networks - one insecure just with Internet access 
for visitors / passersby, and one secure which has access to our servers 
(which, of course, run their own security anyway.)

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Leaflets

[Mark Harrison]

 > Does it have a GUI similar to Windows or do I need to learn code?

I suspect that many Windows users won't know what the word "GUI" means.

I'd suggest:

Q: Does it look like Windows (TM) or an Apple (TM)?

A: A bit like both - if you want a straightforward, easy to use, system, 
then the defaults will be straightforward whichever system you're coming 
from. If you like the idea of fancy "up to the minute" effects like a 
three-dimensional desktop, then Ubuntu's have been rated more highly 
than the effects in Microsoft Windows Vista by many users and journalists.

Mark

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[ubuntu-uk] Tom Peters on Vista and Office 2007

[Mark Harrison]

I'm not sure how many of you know of Tom Peters, since he's not an IT 
person.

He is, however, the world's best-selling business author, and a hugely 
respected "top business consultant". The kind of person who charges £800 
for a one-day seminar ticket, and fills an auditorium of several hundred 
people at that price... and consults for some of the world's largest 
companies.


He's also a regular blogger. (www.tompeters.com)

 From one of his most recent posts:

"I've spent the first three very intense "days off" learning Microsoft 
Office 2007—which has #%$^ all in common with the '97–'03 version; I 
successfully side-stepped Vista 
, only to be fully 
ensnared by its cousin. Hint: I am in a very bad mood."


I've commented before that the best possible way to get OOo onto 
people's desks is to point out that, yes, a large part of the cost is a 
steep learning curve, but you're going to have this is you "upgrade" to 
O2007 anyway

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Linspire and MS deal

[Mark Harrison]

Michael wrote:
> I only ask because according to LinuxDesktop.com's account of the patent 
> deal [http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS9642338710.html], or at least 
> the earlier draft pasted up on Ubuntu Forums, there's an EULA involved:
>
> "According to sources, customers of Linspire's Linspire Linux 
> distribution who wish to take advantage of the newly licensed Microsoft 
> technologies for VoIP, multimedia, and TrueType fonts will be required 
> to signify their acceptance of a Microsoft patent license, much as when 
> users install Adobe's PDF Reader or other proprietary software on Linux. 
> Presumably, the patent license will also contain language that offers 
> Lindows users protection against possible infringement of Microsoft 
> patents by Linux."
> [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2842006]
>   
It's worth remembering in all this that Canonical has some huge 
advantages in NOT being based in the US.

There are three massive differences between Patent law in the US and 
Patent law in Europe. One of them is that there are a whole bunch of 
things (software mainly) that ARE patentable in the US, but cannot be 
patented in Europe.

I do think that the US is shooting itself in the foot on its attitude to 
Intellectual Property. While its legal regime helps a few large 
companies, it seriously hinders many time that number of smaller ones - 
and most (90%+) economic growth and new job creation in the last 10 
years has come from small businesses, not big ones over there.

Regards,

Mark

Oh, and the other two big differences:

- In Europe ANY disclosure of the invention other than under NDA counts 
as prior art and invalidates any subsequent patent application. In the 
US, an inventor may disclose the invention, and then has a year's grace 
period in which they may make a patent application without their 
disclosure (or anything derivative) counting as prior art. (To be fair, 
Europe does have a free "initial filing" scheme that sort of replicates 
this, but the basic deal is you HAVE to talk to the patent office first.)

- In the US, only registered Patent Attorneys may file applications. Net 
result, typical patent filing costs including legal fees - $10,000 
minimum, $100,000 typical. In the UK (and, I believe, in most other 
countries in Europe) anyone may file a patent. Patent agents can give 
advice and improve on the legalese, but anyone may send in a 1/77 to the 
Patent office and establish an initial filing date.





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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Linspire and MS deal

[Mark Harrison]

Michael wrote:
> Chris Jones wrote:
>   
>> (FYI, despite my address, this is all my own opinion - it's just easier
>> to keep all the ubuntu lists in one account :)
>>   
>> 
> I don't know of any sysadmin who doesn't speak his own mind ;)
>
>   
I know many... Those NT servers don't look after themselves, you know 
:-) :-) :-)

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Audio Apps

[Mark Harrison]

Alan Pope wrote:
> Hi Ian,
>
> On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 09:40:49PM +0100, Ian Pascoe wrote:
>   
>> And although not a necessity, should be available on both Ubuntu and Windows
>> platforms
>>
>> 
>
> Audacity.
>
> Cheers,
> Al.
>
>   
+1 for Audacity



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[ubuntu-uk] Planet.....

[Mark Harrison]

Please could whoever decided to edit the Planet feed from my blog 
contact me?

Looking at what you've done, it was probably the right move, but to 
unilaterally decide to hack MY feed without telling, let alone asking, 
seems a bit against what I thought that the community stood for.

*"When you disagree, consult others."*
- The Ubuntu Code of Conduct

Mark


Notes for reference:

- I submitted the link http://markharrison.wordpress.com/feed
- This worked, and was fed until some point between Saturday evening and 
Monday morning.
- The current feed being posted is 
http://markharrison.wordpress.com/tag/open-source/feed

As I said, probably the right decision, but I'm not sure who made the 
unilateral decision to do this.

I am unable to find any reference to this "editorial policy" in the 
minutes of any recent meeting.


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Planet.....

[Mark Harrison]

Alan Pope wrote:
> I have reverted it back as I assumed that's what you wanted to do. If
> you would like to change the URL in the future then use the usual method
> of editing the wiki page so that the non-automated robots.
>
>   
Alan,

I'm happy with the change you made :-)

I'm just a little surprised that the change was made without talking to 
me first.

I'm happy to consider the matter  / thread closed.




Regards,

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] suck it and see

[Mark Jose]

On Thursday 21 June 2007 12:53, norman wrote:

> Come on Ubuntu users, let's hear of all the things you like to use and
> what gives you pleasure. Stop lurking and come out.
>
> Norman

As well as general things such as email, I use my systems for 

Genealogy - using the excellent GRAMPS program and phpGedView

Gaming . Yes, people really do game in Linux - I play Unreal Tournament, 
Quake3, Doom3 and several other commercial games as well as free games such 
as Battle For Wesnoth, Cube, Nexuiz and a whole raft of others. Also a lot of 
emulation using Dosbox, ScummVM,Spectemu and many others.

Wildlife photography and webcamming - using the various photo apps for the 
camera work and camstream for the webcam along with motion if I am using the 
IR camera at night to catch badgers or foxes. The IR cams are either 
commercial IR security cameras or self converted standard webcams, hacked to 
view IR only, coupled with an IR light source. All running through my Kubuntu 
boxes.

Temperature monitoring - using an old OU monitor from a now defunct course or 
a very small probe I purchased a few months ago. Both run via serial ports 
and use rrdtool to create graphs of the fluctuations. I run modified perl 
scripts to "talk" to the devices and good old cron to take the readings at 
regular intervals.

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] suck it and see

[Mark Harrison]

This may seem odd, but on the "Feisty Laptop", I have precisely three 
applications that I use:

- Firefox
- Thunderbird
- OpenOffice.org

On the server, I have an awful lot more, but these days, it's the 
servers that are doing all the "heavy lifting."

Two years ago, we used lots of applications on the desktop.

A year ago, we used a lot of server-side code for tracking our 
activities. Anything that requires input from more than one person in 
the team lives as an entry in a database/wiki/whatever rather than 
client-side apps.

This year, a lot of the "intelligence" of the business is in the form of 
mashups - our geographical information about customers, for example is a 
mashup of our own code, google maps (for display) and code.google.com 
(for mapping UK postcodes to Lat/Long). Goodbye legacy mapping 
applications... Ajax has really helped here.


I must confess that I still have a Windows laptop, also running 
OpenOffice.org, Firefox, and Thunderbird.

The reason I still have a Windows laptop is that I still have a training 
course I run on a vertical application that is only available for 
Windows. I left the company last year, but every few months, I go back 
for a couple of days to train their trade customers :-) Because I have 
the Windows PC, I tend to use that for audio/video editing/CD/DVD 
production, and use (relatively old versions of) the Adobe products for 
those. 

I can't believe that I'll ever buy a Vista PC - Feisty just seems a 
superior product now for when I next change machines.

Mark


norman wrote:
> One of the many advantages of Ubuntu to old codgers like me and those of
> us who depend on our computer for passing the time is the vast range of
> free software and applications available to be tried and tested. Mostly
> these are easy to install and uninstall and generally work with the
> hardware we have. Sometimes, like Mythtv for example, it is necessary to
> get a new bit of hardware but the cost of such is relatively minimal. I
> get tremendous pleasure from applications such as the Gimp, the many
> sound and video applications and if I want to use something which
> requires Widows then I will see if it will work in Crossover Office.
> (Note, Crossover is not free but what you pay goes to help the
> developers of Wine). 
>
> Come on Ubuntu users, let's hear of all the things you like to use and
> what gives you pleasure. Stop lurking and come out.
>
> Norman
>
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] suck it and see

[Mark Jose]

On Thursday 21 June 2007 17:30, Josh Blacker wrote:

> On the leisure side of things, I've played around with a few games but
> the only one I have really played with is Wormux, mainly for the
> nostalgia of Worms :) I boot into XP to play Unreal Tournament, but
> wouldn't mind being able to play it from Ubuntu...
>

Which version of UT Josh?  UT2004 has a Linux installer on the DVD - it is a 
shell script which will install the game for youand UT2003 also includes a 
Linux installer.
Earlier versions are catered for either by installing via Wine or, better 
still, using the Icculus scripts which are obtained from his web site at 
icculus.org. Those scripts need Wine, but tweak the settings per game for 
you. Very nice and straightforward.
I play the original UT quite often (I find it more fun than the later 
versions) but occasionally play 2004.
Incidentally, Icculus also wrote the installers used on the official UT2003/4 
Linux installs and wrote the installers which the now defunct Loki Games 
used. 

Mark




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Re: [ubuntu-uk] suck it and see

[Mark Jose]

On Thursday 21 June 2007 20:27, Ian Pascoe wrote:

>
> In fact here's a challenge for you all to do on those rainy evenings.  Get
> Orca up and running - it's part of the Gnome desktop from 6.06 onwards -
> turn your monitors off, no cheating now, and have a go at doing some of
> your normal tasks to see what I mean.  The voices are fun to play with as
> well if you're running Fiesty.  And you may actually find it useful to have
> the text to speech engine running as you write as it's a dam site easier to
> spot spelling mistakes as you're using two different parts of the brain.
>

A most interesting mail Ian. To familiarise myself with the issues I decided 
to take up the challenge of installing gnome-orca!
To slightly complicate matters, I use Kubuntu, but I managed to install the 
program without any obvious problems.
Annoyingly, it has fallen at the first hurdle - attempting to launch either 
orca or orca-setup results in errors being listed on the command line. 
Although I am sure I can sort those for my own use, it would perhaps cause a 
partially sighted user (or indeed a fully sighted, but new to Linux user) to 
give up before they had started. 
I will check if these issues have been flagged up to the project already 
before I begin sorting them out.

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] suck it and see

[Mark Jose]

On Thursday 21 June 2007 22:56, Chris Rowson wrote:
> > A most interesting mail Ian. To familiarise myself with the issues I
> > decided to take up the challenge of installing gnome-orca!
>
> Me too, I tried installing it too and the installation finishes with
>
> You need to configure ORCA by changing /etc/orca.conf.
> Once you're happy with that setup, you can start the
> daemon by typing /etc/init.d/orca start''.
>
>
> When I try to configure /etc/orca.conf there's nothing there!

At least you got further than me! I had various errors, probably related to my 
trying to install orca on Kubuntu. I have Ubuntu on my main system running in 
a VM, so I shall see how it works there before I start installing the Gnome 
stuff which I suspect is missing from the KDE version and needed for orca.

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Unreal Tournament (was Re: suck it and see)

[Mark Jose]

On Friday 22 June 2007 11:12, Josh Blacker wrote:

>
> I've got Unreal Tourmanent (GOTY) installed on an external hard drive
> and have lost (lots of moving to and from uni this year and now we're
> packed up to move home, and they're not in any sensible places) the
> install disks. On windows I don't need the disks to play. Can I use
> this Loki thing to play from an existing install, do you know?
>
> --
> Josh Blacker

Not having an external drive, I could not be sure, but I would imagine that 
you can install Wine and run the UT from the external drive - but I have not 
tried that.
The Loki installers are really designed for installing from a CD, so you won't 
need those unless you have the setup.exe and so on on the external drive.
I would have a nose around the winehq.org website (and also Franks Corner, 
which is linked from the winehq site). There may be further information there 
on how to do this.  I would imagine you can run the installed UT via wine, 
but the path may be a little complicated! You can certainly run programs 
installed on a Windows drive or partition via wine, so I would give it a try.

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] suck it and see

[Mark Jose]

On Thursday 21 June 2007 20:27, Ian Pascoe wrote:

>
> In fact here's a challenge for you all to do on those rainy evenings.  Get
> Orca up and running - it's part of the Gnome desktop from 6.06 onwards -
> turn your monitors off, no cheating now, and have a go at doing some of
> your normal tasks to see what I mean.  The voices are fun to play with as
> well if you're running Fiesty.  And you may actually find it useful to have
> the text to speech engine running as you write as it's a dam site easier to
> spot spelling mistakes as you're using two different parts of the brain.

Well, I managed to get gnome-orca up and running on a VM install of Ubuntu - 
no problems at all, it was all pre-installed, I just had to enable it.
Anyway, having played around with it for an hour or so this afternoon, I must 
admit to finding it very irritating at times!
The "robotic" voices I could cope with, but the insistance on reading out the 
whole of the command or path etc drove me mad! Why on earth does it feel the 
need to read out that there is a context box containing blah and blah with 
select dialog boxes foo and bar with foo checked and bar unchecked etc etc.

Not having seen the Windows screen readers, perhaps Ian could comment on 
whether they are less "over informative" !

When I turned of the monitor, I was lost - simple as that! 
The basics are a great idea for visually impaired people, but how practical 
they are for day to day use I would have to wonder. 
One of my friends has great difficulty using a keyboard for any length of time 
and a speech to text program is something we have considered. He has a dual 
boot system with XP and Kubuntu and of course, any Windows based software is 
expensive (he is a student and thus unwaged).
I was quite shocked that disabled people are expected to cough up huge sums of 
money for software to help them to use a computer! £350 for software to help 
visually impaired people to use a computer is disgraceful! 

Mark 

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] FLOSS solution for graphing in PHP

[Mark Jose]

On Friday 22 June 2007 18:36, Mark Harrison wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I've got what I thought would be a simple problem, and google is not
> being my friend this afternoon.
>
> I have a database (MySQL5), and a webserver (Apache), and a programming
> language that lets me extract info from one and display it with the
> other (PHP5.) These all run on a nice friendly thing you may have heard
> of called Ubuntu :-)
>
>
> What I'm after is a free (in both senses) "thing" (library, probably),
> that can grab some data, and turn it into a pretty-looking bar graph. I
> don't mind particularly how it outputs the graph provided it's something
> that can display within Firefox, so something that could dynamically
> build a PNG or a Flash, or whatever really.
>
> However, Google has let me down - lots of chargeable libraries, but
> adding the search term "free" gives me "free trial, $69 to buy" or the
> like results.
>
>
> Has anyone any personal recommendations?
>
> M.

rrdtool  - takes a bit of getting the hang of, but will take data e.g 
temperatures - and output as graphs.
Have a look at my brother in laws temperature graphs - 

http://www.hoagieshouse.com/temperature/

Thats the sort of thing you get - you can of course tweak them a bit too.
A cron job gets the data every x seconds and adds the next point to your 
graph.

Mark


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Unreal Tournament (was Re: suck it and see)

[Mark Jose]

On Friday 22 June 2007 14:42, Josh Blacker wrote:
>
> Well I got it to run by using 'wine
> /media/MyBook/.../UnrealTournament.exe' but it's very stilted and
> certainly isn't anywhere near as fast as it is on xp (I wasn't
> expecting it to be, but it is considerably slower, to the point that
> it's painful). It's also very dark, even with brightness up to full.
> Looking at the terminal afterwards, there's lots (and I mean lots!) of
> error messages along these lines:
>
> fixme:d3d7:IDirect3DDeviceImpl_7_Load
> (0x1d75f8)->(0x4c16c88,(nil),0x21dba0,(nil),): Partially
> Implemented!
>
> I'm guessing I'll have to change the graphics driver it uses?
>
> I downloaded the loki installer, but it asks for me to mount the
> discs, which I don't currently have!
> --
> Josh Blacker

What graphics card are you using ?  To play games, you need the correct 3d 
accelerated driver. Ubuntu will install by default a capable driver for the 
card, but not one which gives 3d acceleration. I use an Nvidia card, and the 
commercial 3d driver for that is in the repositories. Not used ATI for many 
years, so I cannot comment on that. 
It *should* run as fast as it does (or very close to it) in Windows. If it 
seems really slow and clunky, then I think you are correct regarding the 
drivers.
The Loki installer is for installing from the disk - as you have discovered, 
wine is the best option if you have the game already installed on your other 
drive.

Mark

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[ubuntu-uk] FLOSS solution for graphing in PHP

[Mark Harrison]

Hi all,

I've got what I thought would be a simple problem, and google is not 
being my friend this afternoon.

I have a database (MySQL5), and a webserver (Apache), and a programming 
language that lets me extract info from one and display it with the 
other (PHP5.) These all run on a nice friendly thing you may have heard 
of called Ubuntu :-)


What I'm after is a free (in both senses) "thing" (library, probably), 
that can grab some data, and turn it into a pretty-looking bar graph. I 
don't mind particularly how it outputs the graph provided it's something 
that can display within Firefox, so something that could dynamically 
build a PNG or a Flash, or whatever really.

However, Google has let me down - lots of chargeable libraries, but 
adding the search term "free" gives me "free trial, $69 to buy" or the 
like results.


Has anyone any personal recommendations?

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] FLOSS solution for graphing in PHP

[Mark Harrison]

Thanks to all who responded - it looks like Alan's suggestion of gd is 
probably what I need.


rrdtool looked interesting, but the home is pretty much all xAP/xPL 
stuff, not least because the HomeVision connector was the first GPL 
application I ever released :-)

Time was (about 2002) when I logged every telemetry event in the house 
(temp changes, lights on-off, occupancy sensors, etc) for about 2 months 
into a MySQL database - trouble was, 1: I couldn't work out what to do 
with the data set, and 2:  we had kids :-) I still have a ludicrous 
amount of home automation hardware sitting on a shelf in the study 
awaiting the day when I'll get the fabled Round Tuit and set it up in a 
child-friendly way.


Too many interesting projects, not enough time.

GD - good call, though. Seems to be what I need.


M.



Alan Pope wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
> On Fri, 2007-06-22 at 18:36 +0100, Mark Harrison wrote:
>   
>> What I'm after is a free (in both senses) "thing" (library, probably), 
>> that can grab some data, and turn it into a pretty-looking bar graph. I 
>> don't mind particularly how it outputs the graph provided it's something 
>> that can display within Firefox, so something that could dynamically 
>> build a PNG or a Flash, or whatever really.
>>
>> 
>
> gd is the library in php that can generate pretty much any graphical
> output.
>
> http://www.partdigital.com/tutorials/bar-chart/
> http://www.weberdev.com/get_example-4619.html
>
> Also as previously mentioned rrdtool is often used to generate graphs.
> An example of rrdtool can be seen if you ever view cacti performance and
> other resource usage graphs. You can see an example on the front page of
> the cacti site.
>
> http://cacti.net/
>
> Cheers,
> Al.
>   

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Unreal Tournament (was Re: suck it and see)

[Mark Jose]

On Saturday 23 June 2007 02:31, Josh Blacker wrote:
> Update: despite still getting error messages in terminal while I run
> it, I can now load UT every time. Graphics aren't nearly as good as in
> Windows but it runs as fast - a small price to pay to run it under
> Linux, I feel. I might at a later date try and solve the graphics
> problem, but since everything works at the moment without any *major*
> issues, I shall leave it as it is.
> Thanks everyone for the help on this thread.
>

Presumably that is down to the "safe mode" or software rendering? 
The later versions, with the Linux native installer (2003 and 2004) work 
really well as Alan mentioned.
I think you are probably taking the right course of action - leave as is for 
now, then see if you can find the CDs once all is settled into the new place. 
Then, when you have time, you could look into the acceleration side of things. 
Good old glxgears will give you a starting point along with glxinfo - they 
will perhaps indicate if things are a bit awry with the 3d side of things 
under Linux. 
Not having used ATI for many years, as I mentioned, I still recall issues with 
mesa libraries interfering with the ATI stuff I believe. But they can be 
resolved - I have played UT in the past with a Rage 128 on a Linux box 
although to be honest, I cannot remember if it was actually software 
rendering or not it was using.

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Seamonkey

[Mark Jose]

On Monday 25 June 2007 18:26, John Taylor wrote:

> I get down to the Manual "Install bit" and then it says it cant find cd
> seamonkey-installer
>
> John

Hi John,
I can see what is wrong I think!
When you untar the package, it probably created a folder called something like 
seamonkey-1.1.1

What you need to do is to go into that folder, using the command line with 

cd ./seamonkey-1.1.1(assuming the folder is in your /home folder - note 
the dot before the slash)
then press enter. You will now (at least in the command line) be in the 
seamonkey-1.1.1 folder.
Then you can issue the command 

cd seamonkey-installer 

and so on.

If untarring the file created seamonkey-installer, rather than 
seamonkey-1.1.1, then simply putting in the ./ bit would do the trick - 

cd ./seamonkey-installer 

(again, this assumes the folder is in your home directory! - if not, then 
issue the full path to the seamonkey-installer instead of simply 
seamonkey-installer and it will work)

Mark


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Seamonkey

[Mark Jose]

On Monday 25 June 2007 23:29, John Taylor wrote:

> I get this far and then..gksudo ./seamonkey-installer ..bad, bad
> doesn't like that lots of error message.
>
> Have at least made some progress tonight
>
> Hopefully talk with you tomorrow
>
> John

I think we need to see the errors John - then we can decide what the problem 
is. I expect there are missing dependancies. The problem with installing from 
the source package is that you don't get the same service as you would from a 
file in the Ubuntu repositories. In the repositories, if a download needs 
other files upon which it depends, it will download those as well. From a 
source package, you don't get that advantage.
But the error message will explain (admittedly rather cryptically!) what else 
you will need to install - probably from the repositories with a bit of luck.

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Seamonkey

[Mark Jose]

On Tuesday 26 June 2007 06:18, John Taylor wrote:

> Mark
>
> You are a late bird - you need your beauty sleep!
>

Indeed I do! At least, thats what the wife says! 

> This is what I have done so far
>
> wget -c
> http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/seamonkey/releases/1.1.1/seamonkey-1.1.1.en-US.l
>inux-i686.installer.tar.gz tar zxvf
> seamonkey-1.1.1.en-US.linux-i686.installer.tar.gz
> cd seamonkey-installer
> gksudo ./seamonkey-installer <<<<- This is where it   doesn't  like it
> sudo mv /usr/local/seamonkey/plugins /usr/local/seamonkey/plugins.bak
> sudo ln -s /usr/lib/firefox/plugins /usr/local/seamonkey/plugins
> sudo ln -s /usr/local/seamonkey/seamonkey /usr/bin/seamonkey
>
> All the above is a direct copy from
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SeaMonkey
>
>
> I think I understand your above comments but why does it install under
> WINDOWS VISTA?
>
> These are the error messages
>
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ gksudo ./seamonkey-installer
> X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 169
>   Major opcode:  145
>   Minor opcode:  3
>   Resource id:  0x0
> Failed to open device
>
>
> What more can I tell you?
>
>
> John

Bear with me John - I will grab a copy of the seamonkey code and see what I 
can discover from this end! 
Not sure why it installs under Vista - but I suspect that it is an exe file 
isn't it, rather than the source code. Attempting to build it under Windows 
from source would need gcc and other things which are not present in Windows 
by default although they can be installed and work well.

Will report back shortly!

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Seamonkey

[Mark Jose]

On Tuesday 26 June 2007 06:18, John Taylor wrote:


>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ gksudo ./seamonkey-installer
> X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 169
>   Major opcode:  145
>   Minor opcode:  3
>   Resource id:  0x0
> Failed to open device
>
>
> What more can I tell you?
>
>
> John

Just spotted the reason for your Major opcode error btw - you are running the 
installer as su - you won't need the gksudo bit in front of the installer 
command. If you try again, with just ./seamonkey-installer, it should work. 

OK, I have been nosing around the Seamonkey site. Firstly, I notice that the 
1.1.1 version has been superceded by 1.1.2 which fixes some serious security 
problems, so I think I would grab that from Mozilla rather than attempting to 
install the earlier version. 
The download is at -
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/
The Linux GTK2 version is the one you want.
Running through the install on the mozilla website - 
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/releases/seamonkey1.1.2/installation.html#linux_install_installer

and all went fine here.  

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Seamonkey

[Mark Jose]

On Tuesday 26 June 2007 10:47, John Taylor wrote:

>
> Mark
>
> I have GTK2 version from yesterdays download.
>
> If I run
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ./seamonkey-installer
> bash: ./seamonkey-installer: is a directory
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$
>  what do I do now?
>
> John

try 
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ cd ./seamonkey-installer
then
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ./seamonkey-installer

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Seamonkey

[Mark Jose]

On Tuesday 26 June 2007 11:14, John Taylor wrote:
> Mark Jose wrote:
> > On Tuesday 26 June 2007 10:47, John Taylor wrote:
> >> Mark
> >>
> >> I have GTK2 version from yesterdays download.
> >>
> >> If I run
> >> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ./seamonkey-installer
> >> bash: ./seamonkey-installer: is a directory
> >> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$
> >>  what do I do now?
> >>
> >> John
> >
> > try
> >  [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ cd ./seamonkey-installer
> > then
> >  [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ./seamonkey-installer
> >
> > Mark
>
> Mark
>
> Just the same as above!
>
> John

John,
The message that seamonkey-installer is a directory means you would need to 
enter the directory first, thus the cd ./seamonkey-installer command I 
mentioned.
If it still complains, then I would have a look at the seamonkey folder you 
created and see what it contains. You should have, if you followed the 
instructions from the Mozilla site, 
A folder called seamonkey1.1.2, containing a folder called xpi, a 
seamonkey-installer-bin and 5 other text type files, one of which is called 
seamonkey-installer. That one is a shell script which is what we are trying 
to get to work. 
I would take a look at the folder called seamonkey1.1.2 and look around in 
there - check that you have the various bits I mentioned. Once you find the 
seamonkey-installer script, you could simply put the full path to it into a 
command line eg

sh /home/john/seamonkey1.1.2/seamonkey-installer/seamonkey-installer 
or whatever the path is. In the example above, I am assuming that the script 
is in a folder called seamonkey-installer, which is in the seamonkey1.1.2 
folder.

If it would help, feel free to email me off the list and I am happy to work 
through it with you step by step if it would help.
I am a little surprised that there isn't a version of seamonkey in the Ubuntu 
repositories actually - but I did check and there doesn't seem to be. 

Cheers,
Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Seamonkey

[Mark Jose]

On Tuesday 26 June 2007 12:02, John Taylor wrote:

> Not sure this helps. but
>
> ./seamonkey-installer-bin: error while loading shared libraries:
> libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Yes it does. Looks like you are missing libstdc++.so.5
That is a runtime library for C++.
It is provided by libstdc++5, so you need to grab that from the repositories - 

sudo apt-get install libstdc++5

Then try running the seamonkey-installer once you have that file.

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Seamonkey

[Mark Jose]

On Tuesday 26 June 2007 13:12, John Taylor wrote:

> We have lift off but where should it be (Seamonkey)
>
> file:///home/john/seamonkey
>
> If its this one how do I activate it?
>
> Sorry to be a pest
>
> John

Good news :)
To run it, you can cd into the seamonkey directory and use the command

./seamonkey

If you want to add it to your menu, then there is a fairly straightforward 
explanation on the Seamonkey install page - 

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/releases/seamonkey1.1.2/installation.html#linux_install_installer

About half way down the page is a heading "Adding SeaMonkey to the GNOME 
panel"  assuming you are using Gnome. If using KDE, let me know and I can 
explain how to add it to the menu there if you are not sure.

Cheers,
Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Seamonkey

[Mark Jose]

On Tuesday 26 June 2007 14:24, John Taylor wrote:

>
> These are the error messages
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ seamonkey
> bash: seamonkey: command not found
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ cd seamonkey
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~/seamonkey$ ./seamonkey
> X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 169
> Major opcode: 145
> Minor opcode: 3
> Resource id: 0x0
> Failed to open device
> X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 169
> Major opcode: 145
> Minor opcode: 3
> Resource id: 0x0
> Failed to open device
>
> John

Don't worry about those errors - as you have found, SeaMonkey will start up 
anyway! 
I am writitng a quick message to explain how to add the SeaMonkey to your 
programs menu in KDE. Will post it shortly.

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Seamonkey

[Mark Jose]

On Tuesday 26 June 2007 13:49, John Taylor wrote:

> Sorry but its KDE
>
> Extra cheers
> John

No problem!
Right click the menu button in the bottom left of your screen, and select Menu 
Editor.
As this is a browser, right click the Internet option in the Menu Editor 
option which has now come up.
Click New Item and, in the Dialog box, type in SeaMonkey or whatever you want 
to call it.
When you click OK, you will get a new area on the right, which has now filled 
in the name you chose and has a selection of different vacant spaces.
In Description, you can add one if you wish - e.g browser - but it isn't 
needed.
Nor is comment.
The important box is Command. There, you need to add the command to start 
SeaMonkey. It will probably be - 
/home/john/seamonkey1.1.2/seamonkey  or 
perhaps /home/john/seamonkey1.1.2/seamonkey/seamonkey   Basically, it is the 
full path to the actual seamonkey command you are using at the command line. 
Trial and error will find the correct path if you are not sure I expect.
That is all you need. (See below for the icon) Click Save and the menu will be 
updated - SeaMonkey will now reside under the menu > Internet.
The icon will be horrible though!  I would expect there is a SeaMonkey icon 
installed for you, but you will need to discover where that is. 
Probable locations are in /usr/share/seamonkey if that exists - perhaps in a 
folder called icons in there even?  Otherwise, I can install it fully here 
and find the icon if you can't locate it. It could be in the seamonkey 
directory in your /home , but /usr/share is the usual place.
To change the icon, simply use the Menu Editor as above, and click the square 
box which contains the rather boring file type icon. It will bring up a menu 
to locate the icon you wish to use. Click "Other Icons" and use the Browse 
button to go to where the SeaMonkey icon is (e.g /usr/share/seamonkey/icons).
Click the icon you want to use and then save. 
All done!
You can add icons to your desktop from the menu by dragging them to the 
desktop and choosing "Link here" from the menu which appears should you wish 
to.

Hope that is useful John - if you get stuck, feel free to shout!

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Seamonkey

[Mark Jose]

On Tuesday 26 June 2007 17:21, John Taylor wrote:

> For the life of me i cant find the correct path, none of your
> suggestions or my permutations will work. What on earth am I doing wrong?
>
> John

John,
When you installed seamonkey, using the installer thing, did you accept the 
default location of /usr/local/seamonkey?  If so, then that could well be the 
sort of path you need

/usr/local/seamonkey/seamonkey  

would be the path in that case.
If you are not sure, you could try to locate the seamonkey binary using 
updatedb - 

sudo updatedb

If you haven't done that before, you will get a message that the database 
doesn't exist - ignore it and it will create one. It will take a few minutes 
perhaps if you have never done it before.
Once finished, you will be returned to the normal prompt.
Then try 

locate seamonkey | less 

which will list all instances of the word seamonkey in your system. The | less 
part will allow you to use the arrow keys to scroll through the list if there 
are lots of instances.  

If you started seamonkey without being in the seamonkey directory and using 
the ./seamonkey command, then it may be that the binary is installed 
somewhere useful like /usr/bin or whatever which is in your PATH ( don't 
worry about that). In that case, you may find simply putting seamonkey into 
the command box in the KDE Menu Editor would be enough.  I would start with 
that and see what happens I think. 

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell & Ubuntu - gradually looking more hopeful

[Mark Jose]

On Thursday 28 June 2007 08:38, luxxius wrote:
> In case you didn't spot it yet:
>
> http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS6756576859.html

But still no mention of the Ubuntu installed Dells being available in the UK I 
see.  US only seems to be a very common phrase in the technology market.

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell & Ubuntu - gradually looking more hopeful

[Mark Harrison]

Other way round!

It's a "common" trick to fit a EuroPlug into a UK socket. This comes up 
when you run short of the appropriate type of kettle lead :-)

The preferred method of doing it is as follows:

- Take N-way mains adaptor
- Remove N-way mains adaptor from mains

- Insert flat-head screwdriver into mains pin on one of the sockets on 
the N-way
- This removes the sliding blanking plates from the live and earth pins...
... at which point the Euro-plug fits into the square UK socket with a shove
- Remove screwdriver

- Put N-way mains adaptor back into mains


1: DO NOT DO THIS TO A LIVE SOCKET :-) In fact, don't even do this to a 
socket "turned off with switch". You should only ever do it to something 
disconnected from the wall.

2: Where possible, use UK plugs! One of the reasons that the UK has so 
resisted the Eurosocket is that we have far fewer electrical fires - 
because all our plugs and sockets are earthed as standard!

Mark



Ian Pascoe wrote:
> You connect a 13 amp plug to a european socket with a pen knife?  Isn't that
> a bit, um, dangerous?
>
> 
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Paul Sladen
> Sent: 28 June 2007 11:03
> To: British Ubuntu Talk
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell & Ubuntu - gradually looking more hopeful
>
>
> On Thu, 28 Jun 2007, Kris Marsh wrote:
>   
>> Most PSUs these days seem to be rated 100-240V 50-60Hz, so [..] all you
>> need is a plug converter/travel adaptor.
>> 
>
> Changing countries is even simpler;  just replace the cable that goes from
> the wall-socket to the "cover-leaf" IEC C7 or "figure-of-8" IEC C5 socket on
> the PSU.
>
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_connector
>
> I carry a single Europlug->Modified C5 cable for both laptops and electric
> shaver---considerably smaller than the suppiled cables and easier to force
> into more socket types (all of Europe + British 13Amp with a pen{,knife}).
>
>   -Paul
> --
> Why do one side of a triangle when you can do all three.   Helsinki, FI
>
>
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>
>
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Leaflets

[Mark Jose]

On Friday 29 June 2007 08:30, Sean Miller wrote:
> alan c wrote:
> > I see it has been put onto the wiki
> > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/Leaflets
> > as
> > leaflet1_alan_cocks.odt
> > (this leaflet got a strong reaction from a Windows-only marketing
> > professional that it covered too *many* significant points)
>
> I think it has a lot of words... could also, probably, do with more
> usage of fonts and sizes to draw the eye to the things the individual
> reader might be interested in...

Agreed - a lot of information there, but not easy to pick out the bits a user 
may be interested in via a quick glance. 

Good to see the OpenCD project mentioned. I have an iso for that here to tempt 
WIndows users to dip a toe into the open source world. It isn't perfect - 
there are a couple of things on it which are rather specialised and I would 
imagine the people who may use that type of thing would already have looked 
into alternatives... but I could be wrong!

>
> I would probably re-arrange the leaflet somewhat. I think that the
> contact information, which is currently on page 5, should actually be on
> page 6 as everything else will, hopefully, have persuaded them by then
> to make contact. You could also have the download links for Ubuntu etc.
> here.
>
> I would then try to ensure that all the individual sections are on their
> own pages. So, for instance, all the information about Ubuntu
> specifically would be on page 5. We therefore have a leaflet that when
> opened displays a page all about Ubuntu (folded in). The reader might
> choose to read this first or to open the flap and start from the beginning.
>
> Which would, broadly, probably result in a booklet that comprises...
>
> Page 1: Front page with Tux
> Page 2: Introduction to Open Source
> Page 3: Ethos and Advantages
> Page 4: Linux and Windows
> Page 5: Ubuntu
> Page 6: Contacts and Useful Information
>
> Just my tuppence worth... hope there are some ideas of use therein...
>
> Sean

The problem with any idea, such as the leaflet one, is that it can quickly 
snowball I guess. Looking at Sean's comments, I thought that maybe a seperate 
page for each of the Ubuntu variations (K,X,Edu etc) would be cool. But then 
things start getting a bit heavy on the printing side!
What about using the links part of the leaflet to link to an online version of 
the leaflet, one for each of the variants? So a Kubuntu page for instance 
would follow the basic leaflet ideas, but could include some screenshots 
perhaps highlightling the various sections. Likewise for the other variants. 
That would add another dimension to the leaflet idea and allow more 
creativity in the display.
The basic leaflet is ideal for distributing at events etc, as it would be easy 
and cheap to print, but the online version could be used to expand and add 
extras as mentioned.
The same sort of thing could be used to show open source projects running on a 
Windows machine.
Sorry if this has already been suggested - I am relatively new to the list and 
may have missed it.

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell & Ubuntu - gradually looking more hopeful

[Mark Harrison]

Chris Jones wrote:
> Hi
>
> Mark Harrison wrote:
>   
>> - Insert flat-head screwdriver into mains pin on one of the sockets on 
>> the N-way
>> 
>
> Insert it into the earth hole. That is how it's supposed to work - that
> is why the earth pin is longer on plugs. It also dramatically reduces
> the chances of you electrocuting yourself if you forget to unplug the
> multi-socket strip, or need to do this on a more permanent socket.
>
>   

Chris,

Sorry - that's what I'd meant.

> It's still not a good idea really, and adapters are very cheap.
>
>   

I agree. I've used it when the "total cost of an adaptor" included such 
externalities as "making eight paying customers sit around and wait half 
an hour for the presentation to start while I nip out to B&Q" :-)

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell & Ubuntu - gradually looking more hopeful

[Mark Harrison]

Sean Miller wrote:
>> Mark Harrison wrote:
>>   
>> 
>>> I agree. I've used it when the "total cost of an adaptor" included such 
>>> externalities as "making eight paying customers sit around and wait half 
>>> an hour for the presentation to start while I nip out to B&Q" :-)
>>> 
>>>   
> Didn't one of the paying customers jump up and say "excuse me, but under 
> the Corporate Health & Safety Guidelines you can't do that, sir!" ?!?!
>
> I thought in this day and age every single piece of electrical equipment 
> had to be checked, double checked and triple checked to ensure that 
> nothing could go wrong... amazed that you could manage to get away with 
> sticking a penknife in a socket...
>   
To add to the irony, the company where I ended up doing this most was a 
Home Automation company, and the customers were typically electricians :-)

To be fair, this had the advantage that they understood the issues!

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Leaflets

[Mark Jose]

On Saturday 30 June 2007 00:38, Kirrus wrote:
> - "Matthew Larsen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Alan i like your leaflets a lot. They are very informational and I
> > think we should definitely base the FOSS leaflet on the one you just
> > uploaded. The wording is great however I think it could be 'toned
> > down' a bit in parts.
>
> 
>
> Can you linkme to the leaflets wiki page please? I can't find it :S
>
> Thanks,
>
> Kirrus

Here you go - 

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/Leaflets

Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell & Ubuntu - gradually looking more hopeful

[Mark Jose]

On Thursday 28 June 2007 14:58, Rob Beard wrote:
>
> Of course there isn't anything stopping you buying a standard Dell
> notebook and just getting shot of Windows.
>

I for one object to being forced to pay for something I don't use. Buying a 
machine with Windows pre-installed is 
a) Helping to swell Microsofts coffers with my money - something I am opposed 
to 
and 
b) Artificially adding to the number of Windows Vista users. That allows 
Microsoft to continue bragging about how well Vista sales are going.

I refuse to purchase any more hardware with Windows installed. It is easy to 
avoid on desktops - simply build your own or buy with FreeDOS or Linux 
installed - but laptops are much more difficult. My last two came with XP 
which I wiped as soon as I got them. 

Mark

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[ubuntu-uk] Windows makes PCs cheaper to buy! ... we need to respond [Dell crapware]

[Mark Harrison]

Yup - boys and girls - it's unpalatable but it needs addressing.

Manufacturers like Dell now receive as much money in subsidies and fees 
from companies like AOL and McAfee for installing crapware on your new 
Vista machine as they have to pay to Microsoft for the Vista licence.

I think we ought to be making a far bigger play of the whole "Crapware" 
thing, which has done a great job of introducing hidden costs to running 
Windows:

- Did you know that a new typical Vista PC only includes the initial 3 
month trial? After that it costs £75 per year to remain protected. 
Ubuntu comes with anti-virus security for life as standard.

- Did you know that a typical new Vista PC only comes with a 30 day 
trial of graphics software? After that, it costs an extra £50 to carry 
on editing your photos. Ubuntu comes with full-featured graphics 
software as standard.

- Did you know that a typical new Vista PC comes with a limited office 
suite called Works that doesn't read your work files properly? Upgrading 
to the full version of Office costs an extra £300. Ubuntu comes with a 
full Office Suite as standard.

M.


> I refuse to purchase any more hardware with Windows installed. It is easy to 
> avoid on desktops - simply build your own or buy with FreeDOS or Linux 
> installed - but laptops are much more difficult. My last two came with XP 
> which I wiped as soon as I got them. 
>
> Mark
>
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Windows makes PCs cheaper to buy! ... we need to respond [Dell crapware]

[Mark Harrison]

A few responses to the various comments:

- It's no co-incidence that this message came at the same time that Macs 
are banging on about the same issue :-)

- I'm not convinced that leaflets are the right place for this.

- I agree with Matthew that this isn't the right "offensive message".

I'd intended this as a "pre-canned response" to anyone who is concerned 
about Crapware, or who (rightly) points out that the cost of a Dell PC 
with Vista is the SAME as a Dell PC with Ubuntu... we are going to get 
questioned about why Linux isn't cheaper, given that the Linux community 
has been going on about "how you save money" and using words like 
"Microsoft tax".


The reason I was bringing it up was that so we had a way to REPLY to 
these criticisms, as and when they come.



Where I disagree with Matthew is that I think most people DON'T think 
these things cost money on Microsoft. They think that they can get them 
free "off a mate" :-) Software copying has become the social equivalent 
of doing 80mph on a motorway!


M.


PS - I refuse to say "Software piracy" - I cannot accept that using a 
piece of software without licence is the moral equivalent of murder, 
arson and rape, though in this post-Disney world, maybe most people 
think that software pirates are Johnny Depp :-)

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[ubuntu-uk] apt-get vs. aptitude

[Mark Harrison]

I've been reading a bit on the differences between apt-get and aptitude.

I'm interested to know which others on the uk-ubuntu list are using (and 
why)?


Oh, and I guess that Synaptic users are welcome to contribute as well, 
though I don't have a GUI on the bulk of my Ubuntu machines, so it's not 
an option for me :-)

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] we suck or we just act differently?

[Mark Harrison]

Gord,

Ubuntu has been well featured in UK media, even if the UK project hasn't.

Because Canonical are based (at least in part) in the UK, I've fired 
media enquiries at them rather than the UK team...

M.



gord wrote:
> Taken from the latest ubuntu weekly news.
>
> """
>  * The Serbian Team has close to 1000 members. Articles written by the
> team have appeared in several magazines and a member was on a TV show
> with national coverage and gave away CDs to the audience. The team has
> held an install fest and participated in the Free Software Network
> Serbia festival. 85 members of the team are also part of the Serbian
> translation team. The forum is very active and has been successful in
> attracting new users and supporting them.
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SerbianTeam
> """
>
> So I'm just wondering why is it that we can't boast like they can? I'm
> not blaming anyone or saying we aren't effective enough but is it just
> me that feels like for a loco team we are kinda small perhaps (small may
> be the wrong word, just small relative to the potential we have in the
> UK.), more like a community of people who use and support Ubuntu in
> their own ways maybe.. Thoughts and suggestions?
>   


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] The genius of FSF

[Mark Harrison]

Mac wrote:
> You do have to hand it to Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen and their 
> colleagues - the genius evident in GPLv3 just takes your breath away:
>
> http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blogs/microsoft_the_copyright_infringer
>
> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070709101318827
>
>
> Mac
>
>   
I'm no lawyer, but in the UK at least, there are at least two problems 
with the "legal analysis" here:

- I had understood that a new contract / law could never apply 
retroactively. I believe that the same applies in the US.
- I had understood that a contract could not be used to cause a party to 
commit a criminal offence. In the UK at least, such a contract term 
would be struck down by the courts (and usually, any contract would 
include a clause that explicitly said that if one part of the contract 
were found to be illegal, the rest still stood.)

On the first, the GPLv3 may indeed prevent Microsoft continuing to sell 
Novell / SuSE vouchers, but cannot be used to trigger Federal 
proceedings against Microsoft for vouchers sold prior to the new version 
of the GPL. Analogy: smoking in public became illegal in the UK on the 
1st July, but this doesn't mean that smokers can be prosecuted for 
smoking in a pub on the 30th June, nor can pubs be prosecuted for having 
smoking areas up till that date.

On the second, there is a real danger of a backlash here. Example:

- Microsoft sells (legally) voucher
- Customer buys voucher
- Customer waits 6 months
- Customer tries to cash in voucher for use on a GPL3 product
- Novell says "Sorry, but owing to the licence used on that GPL3 
product, it would cause a breach of Federal Law for us to provide this 
support. Please choose a non-GPL3 product."

Fundamental principle of marketing - it doesn't matter what's "true" - 
all that matters is what your customer believes!

Mark


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Re: [ubuntu-uk] The genius of FSF

[Mark Harrison]

Mac wrote:
> As I understand it, GPLv3 is not a contract;  it's a waiver of copyright 
> that passes to those who also waive copyright.  This is what's so clever 
> about it - it just doesn't work like a contract or licence.  I think 
> this is why patent/copyright lawyers have such trouble with it:  it's 
> anti-matter!
>
> Best wishes
>
> Mac
Mac,

Thanks for that.

It's hard to see, however, how any legal document written on 1st July 
could retrospectively apply to a contract signed on the 30th June unless 
the contract made specific provision for itself to be modified. Not even 
the government can (normally) pass laws that apply retrospectively.


Oh, and I have (finally) blogged about why I'm not a member of the FSF - 
you are strongly encouraged to visit http://planet.ubuntu-uk.org/ for 
all your Ubuntu-UK related needs :-) My blog is one of many syndicated 
there.

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] The genius of FSF

[Mark Harrison]

Mac wrote:
> That seems to me not contract, but a beautiful and unexpected 
> inversion of copyright law.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand this line of argument... Let me 
explain my understanding first, then someone can tell me what I'm missing...


- A contract is a legally binding agreement between two parties (which 
may, to be fair, be overturned by the courts)

- Any contract exists inside a legal framework, which includes ALL the 
relevant law of the land. As I understand things, the classification of 
the law into things like "copyright law", "property law" and "contract 
law" is a matter of convenient terminology, not of something that has 
any legal status.

- A software licence is a contract between a developer and a user.


Example 1: I (as the owner of a rental property) have a contract (a 
tenancy agreement) with someone who uses that property (a tenant.) I 
give them certain rights (they can use the property as their home), they 
incur certain obligations (they have to pay me rent.) They don't have 
extra rights beyond those stated either in the contract, or accepted in 
the part of the law (property law) that governs such contracts, so they 
can't, for example, use the rental property to run a business.

Example 2: I (as a software developer) have a contract (licence 
agreement) with someone who uses that software (a user). I give them 
certain rights (whatever are determined in the licence agreement), they 
incur certain obligations (which may or may not involve paying me a fee, 
or having an obligation to, say, provide the source code of any 
modifications they release). They don't have extra rights beyond those 
stated either in the contract, or accepted in the part of law (copyright 
law) that governs such contracts, so they can't, for example, deploy a 
single copy of AardvarkManager 1.0 on all their employees desktops, if 
the licence they have purchased is a single-PC licence.


To create a set of new obligations on a party, one of three things needs 
to happen:

- The appropriate law-making body (in the UK, Parliament+Royal Assent) 
needs to pass a new law, or amend an old one.
- The party needs to sign a new contract.
- A set of "conditional obligations" (If X happens, then you will have 
to do Y) in a contract already agreed needs to be triggered (X needs to 
happen)


The GPLv2 included a term that allowed any contract signed under the 
GPLv2 to be upgraded, (by mutual consent) to an unspecified future 
version of the GPL, in this case GPLv3. However, once a programmer has 
granted a licence, the programmer can't unilaterally withdraw that 
licence - so any software currently licenced under the GPLv2 remains 
legal. (Freedom, once granted, endures.)

The programmer may, of course, decide to issue no further licences, and 
say that "as of now, the only licences granted will be under the GPLv3" 
- that's fine, and I support their right to make that decision.


Where the Microsoft / Novell thing has strayed into murky territory is 
that Microsoft have effectively entered into some "future support 
contracts" with a bunch of third parties, in conjunction with Novell. At 
the time that these contracts were sold, Microsoft was in a position 
where it believed that it, and Novell, would be able to deliver on its 
commitment (or at least, this is what they would argue in court.)

However, Novell are now selling some products licenced under the GPLv3. 
Some specific provisions of the GPLv3 mean that it may no longer be 
possible for Microsoft to deliver on the contract it originally signed, 
and Microsoft/Novell may not be able to provide the support they sold 
without breaching a different contract (the GPLv3).

In the UK, it's hard to see how the courts would do anything other than 
demand that MS refund the price paid for the support contract, plus, 
probably, interest, and (maybe) the difference in price required to fund 
someone else to "do the support" the original contract called for.

In the US, the concept of "punitive damages" exists, so that MS might 
have to refund the price, and pay some kind of fine if they refused to 
honour the support contract (and thus breach the GPLv3.)


It would be one hell of a court case - if someone sued Microsoft, then 
they'd immediately call Novell as a co-defendant, and let the courts 
decide who needed to make good on the broken contracts.

What I don't see (and this is where I came in - in disagreeing with some 
of the web articles written) is that a customer calling for support on a 
GPLv3 product under one of these contracts would automatically mean that 
Microsoft had breached the law. No, at worst, they might be in a 
position where it wasn't possible for them to provide the contracted 
services.



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Re: [ubuntu-uk] The genius of FSF

[Mark Harrison]

Lee Tambiah wrote:
>
> Without disscussion I think the GPL 3 is a very good license which 
> protects Free Software and overall should strengthen it. 

I agree.

I agree that you, and any programmer, should have the right to choose 
the GPLv3 in new products you create. However, I also believe that 
programmers should still have the right to choose GPLv2 for products 
they create (and for that matter, the BSD licence, or for that matter 
the Microsoft EULA.)

> Why should a company be able to take code use it, but deny the users 
> to reuse it with modifications, they have brought the product so why 
> should they be restricted? 

Because the people who wrote the code are happy for them to do so, and 
licenced the code to them on that basis. Linus Torvalds has stated, 
unequivocally, that he is happy with what TiVo have done. The FSF's 
lawyers have confirmed that TiVo's use of the GPLv2 software in their 
application complies with the GPLv2.

> With this attitude TiVo is just using the kernel not actually 
> contributing in anyway at all. My 2 pennies worth...
Linus Torvalds disagrees, and has written so in public. (reference 
http://kerneltrap.org/node/8382)

To be fair, he's agreed they've not contributed that much, but he has 
outlined what they have contributed.

He has also praised TiVo for the way that what they HAVE done has helped 
promote Linux and Open Source software in general, and stated that TiVo 
have done MORE than the GPL obliged them to do.



Mark

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] The genius of FSF

[Mark Harrison]

Mac wrote:
> One of the bloggers pointed out that in the USA, breach of copyright can 
> be a criminal offence as well as a civil one
>   
There was a proposal to make such a thing criminal in Europe, but AIUI, 
it got rejected by the European Parliament earlier this year!
> Do you (or Matthew) know whether this might actually have any relevance 
> to Microsoft's liability?
>   
AIUI, it's relevant inasmuch as it might stop Microsoft delivering the 
support it had sold... thus causing MS to breach the contract with the 
party who had bought the support voucher. That failure to deliver could 
be a breach of contract on MS's part, but if I were MS I'd enjoin Novell 
as a defendant.

Actually, I'd probably enjoin the programmer who had changed the 
licencing terms of their product, but only because it'd be a neat way of 
confusing the issue, not because I actually thought it would be 
credible. My experience in court has been a bit jaded - I've appeared as 
a witness (and was complimented by the judge!) but was shocked at the 
dirty tricks the lawyers played.

Matthew, BTW, is rather more of an expert than I am in contracts - if 
anything he says contradicts what I've said, then please assume that it 
is I who have got it wrong.
> Best wishes
>
> Mac

Regards,

Mark

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[ubuntu-uk] Routine Admin...

[Mark Harrison]

Hi all,

This question is particularly aimed at server admin, but 
desktop-specifics would be good.

If you're running an Ubuntu box, what "routine admin" do you perform

- how often do you run apt*
- do you rely on the file system itself to manage disk fragmentation, or 
are there specific tools you use
- do you rely Apache to manage its own logs, or do you prune old ones 
(how often)

... and so on, and so on.


At the moment, I run a cluster of four servers, using a cunning method 
called "ad hoc management" :-) I'd like to tighten up what we're doing 
(not least so I can hand over that kind of operational stuff to someone 
else :-) )

M.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] Routine Admin...

[Mark Harrison]

Thanks to all who've replied.

The apticron package that Alan recommends looks just the ticket!

Regards,

Mark



Alan Pope wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
> On Wed, Jul 11, 2007 at 10:27:40AM +0100, Mark Harrison wrote:
>   
>> - how often do you run apt*
>> 
>
> On servers I install apticron which emails me automagically when updates are 
> available. I also use apt-listchanges to let me know what has changed in 
> those packages. 
>
>   
>> - do you rely on the file system itself to manage disk fragmentation, or 
>> are there specific tools you use
>> 
>
> General consensus is that so long as the filesystem isn't very full, you 
> don't need to bother with defragging.
>
>   
>> - do you rely Apache to manage its own logs, or do you prune old ones 
>> (how often)
>>
>> 
>
> I use logrotate to automatically gzip and rotate logs.
>
> Cheers,
> Al.

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Re: [ubuntu-uk] [uk-marketing] Writing for your local rag

[Mark Harrison]

Chris Rowson wrote:
> Just checked the info, and this parish encompasses 17,200 people!
> (2001 census) 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingham%2C_East_Riding_of_Yorkshire
> Not bad eh!
>
> Although I don't know about the magazine circulation, I think that
> concentrating on smaller areas individually (but with one and others
> support) gives us greater chance of success ;-)
>
> Chris
I've had a few articles published in "special interest" magazines (no, 
not that sort!) - not Linux-related but related to my own area of 
investment specialism - and I currently have an agency running a 
national PR campaign for me in the "day job", so have a bit of 
experience in getting ideas into traditional media.

What I've found is that magazines tend to like articles that:

- Are bang on target for their content area
- Are well-written, in the sense of readability (relatively short 
sentence construction, no plosives next to fricassives, and so on)
- Are free (in the sense of pizza)
- Don't come over as if they were written by a religious nutcase (place 
the following in order of importance, 1: ending world poverty, 2: curing 
cancer, 3: ensuring programmers have a legal right to modify sourcecode, 
then work out what the order of importance is for the magazine readership!)


- Many of them also seem to like articles that appear to interview other 
sources (There is one particular freelance journalist who phones me up 
for a soundbite every few months when he's pitching for a particular 
magazine.) If you are an IT consultant, don't hesitate to get 
sound-bites from your clients about their use of Ubuntu - the angle of 
"local firm XXX switched and"

- More and more local magazines have realised that they can't compete as 
an aggregator of generic news, so are pushing the "local angle" more and 
more... so by all means write for the East Riding of Yorkshire, if you 
live there, or can interview a local firm / celebrity, and make the 
article about THEM.



Regards,

Mark


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[ubuntu-uk] Rendering graphs in PHP - update

[Mark Harrison]

Hi,

A couple of weeks ago, I asked for advice on rendering graphics in PHP 
for display in a web client.

I had a go at a few of the things suggested, before stumbling across an 
alternative solution.

The application was an Extranet where I can make a bunch of assumptions 
about the desktop - so I assumed that everyone was using Firefox! This 
proved to be true apart from the accountant - to cut a long story short, 
he now has FF on his (XP) desktop, though IE is still his default. (The 
struggle continues.)

Anyway, once I no longer had to write browser-independent code, I 
decided to try SVG, the W3C graphics format.

- The good news - it does exactly what I want, it has the drawing 
primitives for things like "rectangle", which allowed a fine-grained 
control over graph layout.
- The better news - SVG support is native in Firefox 2...
- The bad news - ... as an  :-(

Alas, FF2 doesn't support SVG as an  type, so I can't just use it 
in-line. However, there is talk of someone submitting this functionality 
as a Summer of Code project, which would be kind of nice. If that fails, 
it's definitely near the top of the feature request list for FF3.

Anyway, the solution works very, very, well

The way it now works is that there's a PHP page called 
"customer-graphics.php" which starts with:





Then goes on to start:


http://www.w3.org/2000/svg";
 xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink";
 version="1.1"
 baseProfile="full">
  


Before having lots of PHP along the lines of :


echo "";


... where, obviously $xwidth, $xcurrent, $Total, $ystart, and $actual 
col are variables set inside a loop (actually one that grabs a dataset 
out of a MySQL5 stored procedure.)

I hope that all you programmers are impressed that I even have a 
variable declaration block that specifies fill colour, rather than 
typing a colour in-line :-)

The code then finishes:




 



M.

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